Fools Rush In
by londonsocks
Summary: Harry is not stupid,but what if for once he stopped to think for himself for just a moment? Dissatisfied with his current situation he resolves to improve it,to hell with anyone who gets in his way. AU after OOTP. Warning:contains some delicious cliches!
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing...well except for what I actually own, but I own nothing to do with the Harry Potter books.**_

**Chapter One**

Blue, all he could see was blue, a rich velvety navy blue that reminded him of that colour of the night sky just as the first stars were coming out... but then it had been that way for an awful long time, or had it? He wasn't entirely sure. He could remember not remembering and then all the details in his life coming slowly, almost painfully back to him in no particular chronological order. The memories seemed to be grouped into feelings and sensations. He had, in fact,, spent quite a long time on the contemplation of chocolate, his first memory, and every sensation it provoked, one of which was surprise as a chocolate frog was the first piece of chocolate he had tasted.

Once he had remembered far more and was therefore more coherent, if such a term could be applied to a person existing in a big navy blue but otherwise entirely un-remarkable void. Aside from the lack of existence of everything else, he had spent some time worrying over the fact that chocolate was the first thing he remembered. It was not even his favourite sweet, for crying out loud, they were Berty Botts every-flavoured beans and the grudge they seemed to have against Dumbledore. His second favourite were lemon drops... well, more the contemplation of what exactly he would like to add to them for the delectation of the headmaster.

Sitting, or existing, in the big navy blue space had given him plenty of time to think of everything he would like to do to the damn headmaster, starting with the lemon drops. Oh, those evil little bits of sugar, wasting valuable sweet making ingredients that could have been used to make sugar quills, essential for keeping any student awake in history of magic class. The first thing he would put into the lemon drops was Muggle laxatives, he bet they wouldn't test for those, or if they did they would not for some time... He focused, irritated with himself, he had never had this much trouble focusing as a child. Events such as escaping Dudley and stealing food had required quite a lot of planning and concentration, a fact that was making him suspicious.

In fact a lot of things were making him suspicious, like the fact that the bloody boy-who-lived, who had been marked as the equal to a dark lord of the extremely evil, incredibly cunning and intelligent, and last but not least, enormously powerful persuasion. I mean, he could not even say he got the looks out of the pair, before he had gone all snake-ified Voldemort had been a good looking chap.

The decreased concentration had taken away his enjoyment of reading. He had been no Hermione, but he had been no Ron either, before Hogwarts and books on magic were certainly far more entertaining than books on geography, and he had not been too bored reading those at a young age. Being locked in the cupboard meant he often read to stave away boredom. Being locked in a bedroom was only slightly more interesting and yet, he felt no desire to read his school books.

Even more suspicious was his over-whelming desire to save people. Living at the Dursleys had thought him not to trust anyone but himself and to look out for number one first. That's not to say he wouldn't save someone in need, but he would not dive dramatically in front of someone to save them from a curse they were too stupid to avoid.

A plus to this void was the grief he felt at the death of Sirius was almost completely gone, dulled with all emotions. On some intellectual level he knew he missed Sirius and would for some time, but it was more what Sirius represented that he missed. Thinking about it, he realised that he had not known Sirius too well. They had written to each other yes, but they had never truly gotten to know one another. What he missed more than the man was the idea of someone putting him and all his worries first, before all others. He knew Sirius had not been an ideal guardian, discounting the on the run accused of mass murder issue, he had been far too child-like and impetuous and Harry began to wonder if he had ever recovered from his stay in Azkaban.

Sirius had seemed to throw himself almost desperately headfirst into the enjoyment of every situation, as shown by the enormous risks he insisted on taking time and time again, as if trying to make up for all the fun he had missed in Azkaban.

Truly, the death of Sirius was the death of what little remained of his childhood.

The dulling of his emotions brought to his attention how much he now depended on decisions governed by emotion and gut-feelings in his daily life. As a child he had been able to mostly suppress less desirable emotions, especially the pain he felt at the indifference and dislike of his guardians. He had always had a dreadful temper, but it had run more along the smart comments and hidden rage. Thinking now, he was surprised he had not been the only seven year old with ulcers. He had carefully avoided outbursts and shouting, the fear that he would become even a little like his uncle had seen to that.

To be fair though, last year had been more trying than he could have guessed, and he had constructed a mental list of those he was going to do unspeakable things to with a spork and potions. He quite liked the idea of potions, but he found the teaching of them aggravating and incomprehensible. While he knew potions was probably as alike to cooking, which he was very good at, as chemistry, he could find no rhyme or reason to many of the most basic concepts.

That was perhaps the reason he was stuck in this big blue void. Concocting his own batch of a difficult and complex potion and presuming it was correct as it had looked to be, seemed to have been one of his worse ideas. He felt a slight tinge of shame at his own stupidity. He should have brought it to Hermione for verification, but could not bear to hear another of her officious and irritating lectures. There is only so much a normal human being can take, and his temper had been on a hair-trigger last year as it was.

He had found a reference to the potion when he had dropped his potion books and it had fallen open on the calming potion page. The simple calming potion was apparently related to the potion of mental tranquillity, something which he thought would help him deal with the Dursleys this summer and hopefully help him clear his mind of the ever-present interfering emotions. While Occlumency seemed far out of his reach, peace and quiet did not. The potential relief from nightmares and mental intrusion just cemented the deal.

It had been simple to creep into the restricted section of the library during dinner one day to charm a quill to copy the recipe verbatim. He had taken so much care to follow each and every instruction he was mildly surprised he had failed.

To be fair though, he was feeling very tranquil so perhaps the potions had worked. He wondered if when he ever woke up he would have all his limbs or whether he was doomed to spend all existence as a piece of lint.

_Cold, COLD, COLD! _

Sweet puffskeins in a pile it was cold! Harry pried open his eyes to see his aunt staring at him with an empty bucket and a look of mingled disgust and slight fear. After a few moments listening to her illogical ranting Harry learned that for the past five days he had been doing everything he had been told to do which was not the problem. The non-stop singing about marmosets, unevenly dilated pupils and manic grin were what had concerned her. Apparently it was creepy.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing...well except for what I actually own, but I own nothing to do with the Harry Potter books.**_

**Chapter Two**

Harry spent the rest of the day refusing to do his chores with his door firmly shut and a chair against it, which incensed his uncle whose shouts of 'None of that delinquency will be taking place under my roof,' were not muffled in the slightest by the cheap door.

After searching though his trunk, he found the piece of parchment detailing the recipe for the potion of mental tranquillity hidden under a pair of, dare he say it, almost grey underwear. Flashbacks to Snape's spindly legs horrified him, but he was immediately proud of himself for suppressing the image deep into the recesses of his mind, never to be seen again.

He had charmed a quill to copy down everything on the page in the potions book, getting around the copyright curse by stopping the quill at the end of every sentence to add extra, obviously random, words. On reading the page again he discovered that he had been correct making the potion, he just had not read the line at the end instructing the brewer to dilute the potion in dragon saliva four times for safe consumption.

Harry then sat for hours trying to categorise his thoughts and experiences, feeling the urge to write down his conclusions. But he had learned after the infamous DA list last year that evidence was best not kept lying around.

He knew he had to at least try and prepare himself a little. He had survived before on luck, but now what he really needed to supplement that was a little skill. With his preparation at Hogwarts he could perhaps hold his own against an average adult wizard for around thirty seconds, against a powerful and ruthless death-eater... Well, thinking about that made him suddenly feel the urge to investigate time-share villas in Spain and all they had to offer.

What he really needed, more than training, was some relaxation. Not the usual chess or Quidditch, which though he loved it and it let him forget his worries, it only did so when he was in the air. The second his foot hit the ground again, they all came rushing back, and perhaps due to the brief respite, felt heavier than ever.

Not that he even had the opportunity for either chess matches or Quidditch. He was quite sure he could cause all of his family to develop a well deserved deeply rooted phobia of brooms were he to start attempting to play Quidditch in the house. It would almost be worth the look on his relatives faces as he swooped around the sitting room. Dudley would no doubt be crouching in a corner somewhere in the house clutching his fat arse, trying to fit into a press or, knowing his intelligence levels, holding a curtain in front of his face. That or a combination of the above; he could just see it now, Dudley frantically trying into the press under the kitchen sink, but stuck half way out due to his rather rotund body, flailing his legs wildly in an effort to further cram the rest of his body in, while simultaneously attempting to cover his giant arse with his pudgy hand to dissuade another pig-tail and attempting to shield his rather noticeable hiding place with the kitchen curtains.

Petunia, on the other hand, would be torn, she would be trying not to faint while simultaneously closing all the curtains, trying to calm her husband and soothe her unintentionally comical son. Vernon, the human kaleidoscope, had by far the easiest reaction to predict, when provoked, turn a variety of interesting colours and wildly wave your arms in the air while bellowing incoherently. He might be so angry he would pull chunks out of his moustache like he had when Harry was eleven. The lopsided look was in this season.

Chess would probably provoke a more sedate reaction as he would be playing with himself, but when one comes to the stage of playing board games with oneself, one should gracefully admit that they have progressed past pathetic and are only one step from attempting to gnaw on one's elbow.

What he needed was something to entertain himself with, and unfortunately there was nothing he could do in Little Whining and no-one to do anything with, what with his sterling reputation in the area. He did not know anywhere he could go in the Muggle world, and he had no intentions of going anywhere near wizarding London. His summer spent there after second year, along with the plethora of pictures in the newspapers last year, meant he was easily recognisable. He had no intention of being whisked away for a simply delightful spot of torture and death at Voldemort's hands, nor did he intend to be mobbed by people who had not read the 'Prophet recently and still believed he was a raving lunatic, or those who had read it and believed he was a god among wizards again, not unless they were young, beautiful and flexible witches.

Option three was the lecture and disappointed look he would get from Dumbledore when his friendly neighbourhood stalkers informed the intrusive and incredibly astute headmaster of his wayward and naughty behaviour. Option three was almost as bad as option one, the sheer irritation he felt even thinking about the headmaster lead him to believe that he would probably develop an ulcer trying to restrain himself from destroying his office again, or better yet, turning him into a goat and giving him to his brother.

He was sure these emotions were his own as he felt more along the lines of 'permanently-shaving –off-his-beard and humiliating and insulting the headmaster more than is logically possible until the day the old man died', rather than the 'I-want-to-repeatedly-stab-him-with-something-very-sharp-and-pointy until he is more goo than person' variety.

Another problem was that he, pathetic as it may sound, was lonely. He needed some human company, someone he could actually talk to without wanting to hex. This ruled out both Ron and Hermione. Hermione would take one look at him and berate him for leaving the Dursleys while insisting he informed the headmaster of where he was before returning to Privet Drive. Another mark against seeing Hermione was that she had the insensitivity to send him a pamphlet on the stages of grief during his rather drugged up state. A pamphlet he had found only this morning along with a note informing him of what he was sure to be feeling. While he could acknowledge that he and Sirius had not been exceptionally close he still missed him and resented her typically tactless interference.

Ron on the other hand would probably be incapable of sneaking out to meet him undetected, and if confronted on the way out would no doubt let slip Harry's location. Or, in the unlikely case of his successfully meeting Harry, he would blurt out all the days happenings when interrogated on his return by his mother ,who would immediately inform Dumbledore, again necessitating the sermon on how everyone loved him and wanted to keep him safe with the unsaid message being 'by any means necessary'. Ron had, typically, not written to him in the few days he had been at the Dursleys, but undoubtedly a letter informing him about the Cannons would be winging its way to him soon.

Ron's obsession with the awful team had irritated him for a few years now, especially since he had begun to use Harry's birthday as an excuse to buy something about the Cannons for himself. Harry had actually given him 'Flying with the Canons' back last year considering Ron had read it so many times it was falling apart, while Harry had only read part of it. His eyes had literally been unable to deal with the hideous orange found on almost every page and, between the watery eyes and the headache, it was now his least preferred book. At least his History of Magic text book made a good pillow with a few judiciously applied cushioning charms.

He sighed in irritation and picked up his battered copy of 'Quidditch Through the Ages', the only magical book he read for pleasure but a scrap of parchment dropped out.

It was a note from Dean and Seamus, with Seamus again apologising for not having believed him last year and both of them for not supporting him more. Scribbled at the bottom was Deans' phone number with an invitation to meet up or stay over the holidays at either or both of their houses and informing him that Seamus would be staying with him in London for the first two weeks of the holidays.

It was perfect, he had regretted the fact he was only on nodding terms with the majority of the school and was not even on this level of familiarity with many more. He spent a few more minutes debating whether or not it was safe for him to leave the wards and worth the risks, but decided for the sake of his sanity that he had to do it. There was a distinct chance, with the way the summer was going so far, that come September he would be a gibbering drooling mess, although a perfectly safe and loved drooling lunatic.

He was glad he had not found the note with the number during the last few days. He wasn't sure if he had been coherent to call it, but the fact he had managed to cook three meals a day in that state did not bode well. Suddenly, he wondered if he had written to anyone but discovered to his combined relief and disappointment that his parchment was still rolled up and untouched. The look on Hermione's face when she read what he had written and sent her in that state would have been priceless.

Next up for consideration was how exactly he was going to leave undetected. He had no doubts he was being watched, but knew he had not the skill to detect them. Another problem was that the weak link in his protection, namely Dung Fletcher, was more than likely gone, Dumbledore was anything but a fool. He no doubt had a magical method of monitoring whether Harry remained within the wards, along with his physical methods.

After asking Dumbledore about where he was staying over the summer and learning about the blood wards, he had been angry enough to actually look up blood wards. He found little about them before his interest waned, but the general gist was that the wards worked only if his blood resided where his aunts did. It had not said how much of his blood and whether the rest of him had to be there, too. He did know that magic was very specifically worded and leaving a phial of blood on his bed as a decoy to fool the wards was a risk he was willing to take. That left only the actual guards, and he could unfortunately not think of any clever little trick to get past them.

Deep in thought, he wandered down to dinner with his relatives. With a sniff his aunt informed him that he should be earning his keep around the house rather than sitting in his room all day thinking freakish thoughts and doing freakish things. This was, of course, unlike her dear Duddykins who was out to tea with his friends as he was a popular and handsome boy who didn't look like something had died in his hair. Harry felt the urge to point out that Duddykins did smell like some poor creature in his vicinity had ventured too close and had been sucked into his tremendous fat folds, suffocating quickly, as he often sat around for hours after practising in the home made gym before Petunia could no longer take the smell and gently encouraged him to go wash. Vernon's response to Dudley's distinctive aroma was that it was manly and reminded him of his days in Smeltings. Harry promptly swore never to get down-wind of that school.

For the majority of the meal he let his aunt and uncle's conversation drift over his head as he contemplated more and more ridiculous schemes to escape. His favourite so far involved a llama costume, a giant tub of gone-off mayonnaise and a cuckoo clock. His nonsensical plotting was interrupted by his aunt beginning an unusually venomous tirade about new people moving into the area with no respect for older residents who clearly knew more about the every aspect of the locale and, therefore, what colour all the doors on Privet Drive should be painted next month. This lead him to realise a clear advantage he had over his guards; after ten years of being chased all around the neighbourhood by Dudley and his gang, and one of sulkily moping around it, he really knew more about Privet Drive and the surrounding area than most, certainly more than people who had only been here a few days.

He, rather politely in his opinion, informed his aunt that he would be spending most of his summer reading about magic in his room and might miss some meals but not to bother fetching him. His uncle began to swell up in preparation for what had all the makings of a truly impressive outburst with the promise that his face was sure to cycle through an awe-inspiring range of colours before Harry said three words stopping Vernon before he began...'Mad-eye Moody', and left for his room. The small squeak that Vernon omitted as he left the room was most satisfying.

The next morning, when his uncle had left for work, Dudley had left to fill his busy schedule of petty vandalism and smoking stolen cigarettes, and his aunt was thoroughly engrossed in one of her day time soaps, Harry slunk downstairs to help himself to the wonder that is the phone.

Two minutes later he was calling Dean, who seemed honestly delighted to hear from him as neither he nor Seamus had expected to, and both were free the next day. Unlike Ron, Seamus, who grew up in a predominantly wizarding household, had an excellent grasp behind the concepts of the telephone and they spent a few minutes talking before Harry heard the tell-tale jangle signalling an ad break in his aunt's show, and his cue to hang up with promises to meet in Muggle London, far away from the wizarding section.

He spent the rest of the day wandering around Little Whining like he had last year. He even put the most convincing pout he could put on his face until a little girl pointed out to her mother, in not as many words, that he looked like he had just soiled himself. This caused Harry to wonder whether this was what he actually looked like when he sulked, and whether he had looked like that all last year. If that was the case, it was no wonder that Cho cried. Despite the few hours he spent wandering around he neither heard nor saw any sign of his guards, but he had no doubts they were there.

Remember, it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing...well except for what I actually own, but I own nothing to do with the Harry Potter books.**_

**Chapter Three**

Ah, yet another beautiful day in Little Whining Surrey, a good proportion of the undiagnosed obsessive compulsives in London getting ready in the exact same way as they did yesterday and will tomorrow, the grass the same length on everyone's lawns, and the sweet smell of cleaning products lingering around number four.

This was where his shameful plan came into effect; Harry needed a little bit of chaos to slip away, and what better way to achieve that than to muddy-up the almost identical and abnormally clean cars. It was so embarrassingly juvenile, but there was actually no need for a more complex plan than to cause a slight ruckus, slip away through the hedges and run like hell. He had even gone to considerable risk, entering Dudley's room to find a bus timetable, some spare change and had spent a noxious twenty minutes working out how to buy a train ticket online with Dudley's credit card. The stench in the room, a mixture of unwashed male and gone off food combined with the musty odour of cigarette smoke and the unpleasant tang of stale beer, had almost made him retch. Only years of dealing with the smell of the potions dungeon had kept his gag reflex in check and he had managed to escape, eyes streaming, but undetected. Honestly, how his aunt with her obsession with cleanliness, ignored that cesspit was beyond him, the smell alone was enough to down a small dragon.

The plan was perfect, so simple that it only took him half an hour earlier in the morning with a few buckets of muddy water, more mud than water, so childish that the neighbours wouldn't suspect him, and so ridiculous his watchers would presume it was just a truly awful attempt at revenge, that the boy-who-lived had finally cracked and started throwing mud around and that he was only one step away from throwing crap.

Three... two... one... and then the sweet sound of Mr. Number Seven, always the first one out in the mornings, leaving his house. He had expected some display of anger that would bring all the others running, but the whimper the man let out was frankly embarrassing for males everywhere. Harry had to satisfy himself with the betrayed and horrified look on the man's face and hope others would cause more of a distraction; he knew his uncle wouldn't let him down.

He heard the pounding steps of his uncle approaching the front door as he slumped further and discreetly leaned towards the almost unnoticeable gap in the hedge, and there it roar of rage complete with disjointed sentences and unnatural skin tone. And so began operation scuttle-through-the-hedgerows, which was a lot harder now that he was almost a respectable height for a grown man than it had been when he was a midget. He repressed a cackle as he approached the bus stop, he needed to be discreet and manic laughter at any volume was always very noticeable.

He had worn his most respectable clothes, and by that, he meant Dudley's old clothes that he had transfigured and charmed so that it no longer appeared as if he was an extra on the set of 'Oliver'. He may be male, and he may not have the best fashion sense, but he could damn well tell what items of clothing someone should never ever wear, though the wizarding world's opinion on what colours were acceptable was somewhat dubious. He occasionally felt tempted to hex all Dumbledore's robes plain black, but then he also wanted to throw shampoo at Snape whenever he saw him, and both ideas were extremely dangerous to his health.

He put on his best innocent face as the bus pulled up, glad he had timed his run to perfection. With relief he slumped down into a seat, getting no more than a cursory glance from the driver. He was glad he had decided not to wear a cap or some equally obvious disguise, though the idea of a fake moustache was tempting. The make-up he had stolen from his aunt to hide his scar was quite sufficient.

He re-read the directions Dean had given him to their rendezvous point. Seamus had been unnaturally excited about Harry's 'daring escape,' as he called it, and had wanted them to have code-names (hairy bear for Harry) and secret nonsensical phrases to confirm their identity when they met up. Clearly, Dean had been allowing him to watch spy movies again, something that had been banned after third year. Seamus had spent a significant portion of the year introducing himself as Finnegan, Seamus Finnegan, humming spy music under his breath, and had become increasingly paranoid as the year progressed once Fred and George started paying the lower years to act suspiciously around Seamus, and even went so far as to move his possessions slightly while he slept.

The twitch Seamus had developed had been entertaining for a while, but they had been forced to end the charade and set him straight after 'The Incident'.

The bus pulling into the train station drew him out of his musings and he hopped off in search of his train, he only ten minutes before the train left and had to find Dean and Seamus before then. Aah, there they were, Dean saw him first and nudged Seamus who was looking slightly anxious, hopefully not due to a relapse into the behaviour of third year. He grinned at them, it was nice to see people looking pleased to be in his presence.

'Hey mate, I see you made it,' said Dean as he slapped Harry on the back, while Seamus just smiled sleepily in welcome.

'Aah, it's before nine in the morning, I had almost forgotten about Seamus inability to function without vast amounts of caffeine. You haven't been amusing yourself by denying him tea again, have you?'

His only reply was the smirk that crossed Dean's face as he ushered the two of them onto the train.

'The bastard tried to feed me coffee. _COFFEE. _Claimed it was all he had, but I know better...' was Seamus semi-coherent response as he slumped into a seat.

'Not to be rude, but we've never been the best of friends, so what's with the invite?'

'You don't really beat around the bush do you?' was Dean's reply.

'We both always liked you, Seamus a little too much in my opinion, but there you go, except you were so close to Ron and Hermione, since before first year in the case of Ron, and never seemed like you needed or particularly wanted any more friends. Last year though, especially at the end of the year, you really seemed to be distant from everyone, especially Ron and Hermione, and looked like you needed a break.'

Seamus nodded in agreement, far more awake than he had been a few minutes ago, 'and who better for having fun than us? Hermione is not the um... most exciting person to be around and Ron is a bit thick half the time. That, and I was getting bored with only Dean and Nev to hang around with in the dorm.'

'You guys hang around with Neville?'

'Yeah, not really 'til this year. He's kinda come out of his I-love-plants-a-little-too-much shell. It's stopped me worrying about what he gets up to in the greenhouses all the time he goes there. Only Professor Sprout spends that much time there and the thought he might be into her is only slightly less disturbing than the thought he might like getting spanked by the Whomping Willow.'

'I might point out at this time that I, like any normal half sane person, thought he was dating someone or just had a life outside the tower, but Seamus was actually pathetic enough to follow him around for a week and said he spent most of his time in the greenhouses. He must have just been lonely.'

They all paused for a moment of contemplation broken by Seamus' comment

'Dean, I normally wouldn't swear in the presence of ladies,' he nodded his head to indicate Harry at this point who bared his teeth in reply, 'but sometimes you are such a fucking womanI. It's probably all the fruity artwork.'

'Chicks dig artists,' was Deans' reply followed by a string of insults mainly centred on Seamus' physical insufficiency which he finished off by claiming that no woman on any uncertain terms would ever consider touching Seamus.

Harry was mildly surprised at Dean's vocabulary, but internally mused that it was always the quiet ones.

'Lavender Brown,' was Seamus' smug reply

'I thought she was dating Ron?' Harry interjected

'Oh please, she is such a slut. She's made a pass at nearly every male in the school above thirteen, and I know for a fact she spent the second half of the year lusting after that centaur teacher. He's only human-ish from the waist up for Merlin's sake, so Seamus, Lavender doesn't count and Harry, how bloody oblivious are you?'

'Clearly very,' was Harry's dry reply. 'But obviously not nearly as bad as Ron. Firenze? Really? Poor Ron, don't think he could quite measure up.'

This brought about a good deal of childish sniggering and the rest of the journey consisted of the guys naming every girl in the school, most of whom Harry didn't know by name and had to be described for him.

They arrived in Norfolk quite early and Seamus immediately insisted that he be given teaI. It may have been past nine in the morning but one must drink many cups of tea in a day in order to function properly, as they were gravely informed by Seamus.

This was the most serious that Harry had ever seen Seamus being and while Dean looked like he was still in the mood to torment Seamus, the slightly fanatical and somewhat murderous gleam in Seamus eyes when he mentioned tea led Harry to agree. That, and he was starving.

After a very long, leisurely breakfast in which Seamus' tea cravings had been temporarily sated, they agreed on the first order of business for the day: shopping. None of the three were particularly happy about this, but after Harry pointed out he would look like a hobo once the transfiguration and charms wore off his clothes, they agreed.

One and a half slightly traumatised hours later, and with Harry still flexing his 'Quidditch toned muscles', they decided to venture into the magical area of Norfolk. They had chosen Norfolk as the place to go shopping as the magical population in the area was small and both Seamus and Dean agreed they didn't want to be mobbed, although Seamus repeatedly pointed out the benefits of fan-girls.

'Ugh, I could really use some fan-girls about now, these bags are so heavy. I bet you could have just batted your beautiful green eyes at them and those that wouldn't have fainted would have been more than willing to help.'

'Why Dean, I didn't know you felt that way about me, I thought Seamus was the man for you. I'm sorry Seamus; you clearly are going to have to find someone else to warm your bed on those cold winter evenings and warm summer evenings. Dean, I'm afraid you also shall soon be sleeping alone, I doubt Seamus will forgive you and the manly bits just don't do it for me. On the other hand it does get freezing in the evenings... which do you prefer, big spoon or little spoon?'

As Dean's hands were full he couldn't give Harry the finger, although he made a valiant attempt. Seamus on the other hand turned around to peer at Harry's eyes.

'Huh, never noticed you had green eyes, you really can't really see them through your extra nerdily-thick glasses.'

'Touché Seamus, touché, although now that you mention it I could do with some new, preferably indestructible ones. Do you know if there is such a thing as a magical opticians?'

'There is no way any wizard would willingly let another poke around at their eyes with a spell, not even a healer. When they say the eyes are the window to the soul, they mean it. So yes, there are wizard opticians, but I don't know if there is one here, Didcot Way is really small.'

Seamus had, over breakfast, attempted to answer as many of Harry's questions about the wizarding world as he could, with the occasional interjection by Dean who had to translate the occasional wizard custom into Muggle terms. Harry was slightly uncomfortable once he realised how little he truly knew about the world he had spent the last five years in.

They reached the entrance to Didcot Way, a lamp-post that when tapped with a wand made the wall behind it, covered thickly in ivy and vines, a gateway to walk through.

Didcot Way was by no means as impressive as Diagon or Knockturn Alley, it was a short, old, cobbled and winding street and so narrow that perhaps only four or five people could walk abreast in it. The buildings were crooked and almost curving over the street, blocking out most of the daylight. But the street was lit by floating balls of butter yellow light, giving it a mysterious air at first glance. On further inspection, the buildings did not seem to loom so much as slump and Didcot Way gave the impression of slumber rather than the ominous air of Knockturn Alley, or the bustling and cheery aura apparent in Diagon Alley. Few people were apparent, and those that were rambled languidly from shop to shop. Like all exclusively wizarding areas, it seemed seeped in ancient magic and the air had a certain curious quality never found in the Muggle world that seemed to relax his body and shout 'home' to him in his mind.

They spent a while meandering from small poky shop to small poky shop, getting their bags shrunk and lightened in a dusty bookshop where Harry bought a few books and luckily, at the real end of the alley found a small opticians. The three were greeted by a middle aged balding man wearing the most unusual goggle-like glasses which changed colour, both glass and frame, at seemingly random intervals.

'Good day young sirs, might I inquire as to which one of you fine young gentlemen wished to honour my establishment with your patronage?'

Harry presumed he did not get many customers.

'That would be specky-four-eyes over there. He wants all the girls, and perhaps boys, to be able to see his beautiful big green eyes better.'

With a little difficulty Harry restrained himself from giving Dean some beautiful black eyes.

'Yes, I need new glasses, preferably as indestructible as you can make them'

'Well then, you have come to the right place, Orville of Orville's Observations makes second to none eye-wear. You shall soon have all the young witches and wizards rather amazed and impressed when they see you in these'

Harry controlled his initial urge to laugh though Seamus and Dean had far more difficulty behind him; Orville had proudly presented Harry with a pair of glasses a small girl would have been proud of. They had lurid purple frames which twinkled slightly like the night sky, but what really made them ridiculous was the moon in the top corner of one of the lenses, an occasional cloud drifting in front of it.

'They can also be set to dawn' the shop owner explained in a satisfied voice and as he spoke the frames changed to a bright pink and the moon brightened immensely to a yellow sun. Harry briefly wondered if Dumbledore's infamous twinkle was, in fact, tiny suns on his glasses lens but thought it best not to ask.

'Have you any... ah... less impressive glasses? Perhaps in black?'

'Are you sure young man? Few would fail to observe your superior taste...' he trailed off at Harry's decisive nod, ignoring the renewed snickers from the other two teenagers.

With a slightly disappointed sigh and a flick of his wand a tray was produced with a wide range of black glasses. Harry thanked the man and told him he would call him when he made his choice as the shop keeper was beginning to look less than impressed with Seamus and Dean's continued laughter and gasped comments.

'Seriously guys, shut the hell up and help me' was Harry's amused comment and he proceeded to pick glasses and try them on.

'You know Harry, you look completely different with your glasses off. Wait, I've got it, student by day, jump into Hagrid's hut, whip off your glasses and it's dark lord slayer by night.' Seamus sniggered to renewed mirth.

Finally, after thirty seven dirty jokes and twelve comments mocking Harry and his 'simply delightful green eyes' a pair were chosen and the shop keeper summoned back. He placed an unbreakable charm, a charm to prevent them from being removed from Harry's face by anyone other than him, a charm that immediately summoned them to Harry with a word and numerous other handy little charms on them, for a small fee of course. The minute Harry put them on they automatically changed to fit his prescription and Harry could see better than he could remember being able to in years. Thanking the man and paying a hefty sum, they left.

The title of a shop caught Harry's eye on their way back up Didcot Way; 'The Suspicious Shop for the Suspicious' and Seamus demanded they have a look around.

Inside was all the paraphernalia he had seen in Moody's office and more, including books such as 'What to Do When You Know They Are Coming to Get You,' '3512 Ways to Avoid Capture,' and 'So They Have Finally Found You.' Harry flicked through a few and they seemed to have been written by some deeply paranoid and disturbed people, although they did contain some useful spells and potions. One of which caught his immediate attention in 'What They Did to You and How You Can Prove It'. It appeared to have been written by a wizard claiming he had been abducted by green striped tmongerflops, whatever they were. But the Revelation Potion was present in a less detailed form and just as a reference in two of the other, more rational books, so Harry felt that the potion was worth a shot. It was made from mostly common ingredients, the complexity seemed to lie in the brewing aspect, and with practise should be possible for even the average brewer, which he felt he was.

Harry picked up a few more books and a foe-glass while Dean and Seamus amused themselves buying some tiny and delicate looking gadgets. Finished with their purchases, the three headed back out into the street.

It was now getting past lunch time, and Harry mentioned he wanted to pick up a few ingredients in the apothecary he had spotted on the way down before heading back to the Muggle world for lunch and then catching the train home when the glint of light off a shop window caught his eye and he glanced at the window of 'Magical Monsters and Charming Creatures.' Slowly, an evil smile spread over his face. Perfect, it was just perfect.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing...well except for what I actually own, but I own nothing to do with the Harry Potter books.**_

**Chapter Four**

The train journey back to London was uneventful, Harry's newest pet lay on his knee, hidden from the eyes of the Muggles by the Seamus' body. On their arrival to London he slipped him into the specially provided pet carrier that shrunk once closed, and slipped it into his pocket along with a few of his minimalised purchases. He had given most to Seamus to look after as Seamus made Harry promise to come visit him in Ireland along with Dean. On arrival in London, they spent a few minutes making plans to that effect, although Harry had to leave in a hurry as Seamus had once again started looking a little bit shifty and muttering about fake moustaches after Harry had assured him he couldn't grow a moustache in a week. He had learned his lesson from seeing Dudley's attempts, dead-mouse-on-the-lip is not attractive; even Uncle Vernon had noticed and suggested Dudley shave.

Unlike his bus journey into London, the return journey was far from boring and very productive. Harry filled his being-nice-to-people quota for the week by helping an old woman get her bags onto the bus, and karma nicely rewarded him for this deed as she sat beside him and started talking to him. What made this so satisfying was that the woman was old Mrs Patterson who lived in number nine, the undisputed queen on gossip and society of Privet Drive. At first she didn't recognise him and looked mildly startled when he introduced himself which he politely pretended not to notice. The real reward was when he gravely informed her that he had just returned from his exclusive boarding school and had had to go to London to dip into the trust fund his poor murdered parents had left him to feed and clothe himself as the Dursleys refused to.

At first she was disbelieving but his continued shy tone along with the sweet yet innocent look he had on his face during his heartfelt and just ever so slightly tearful confession soon had her shaking her head in disapproval and patting his hand in sympathy. To Harry's great amusement a few of the other passengers heard his woe-filled story of the orphan left with his cruel and uncaring relatives, and seemed outraged on his behalf, although he barely had to embellish his story at all. By the time he got to the part about how hurt he was that the Dursleys told such horrible lies about him to the neighbourhood, the whole bus was listening and one woman actually gasped in horror when he told Mrs. Patterson about Uncle Vernon threatening to throw him out on the streets last summer when he was just trying to help his poor cousin who was having a bit of a turn.

As the bus approached his stop, the one just before from Mrs. Patterson's stop, he quietly thanked her for listening to him, blinking rapidly with his head ducked shyly, and left the bus to a few gruff handshakes from some elderly men and a hug from a mother with a toddler.

Jogging back to number four, while crouching down low to avoid being seen and slipping through hedges, he wondered if he could train himself to blush on command, it would be so useful in the coming days, but focused his thoughts as he reached his distraction of choice. Speed was of the essence for this one to work. Again, it was simple but far less traceable to him than this morning's diversion had been. Both Mr and Mrs Number Five worked, a fact that made Aunt Petunia sniff in disapproval, and they were both rather paranoid. Of course, they were but mice to Moody's mighty elephant of paranoia, but they did have a very loud, very sensitive state-of-the-art alarm system.

Harry just picked up a fair sized pebble and threw it at the front window of number five as he dove through the hedge and dove rather dramatically through the side window of number four, a window he had been sure to leave open this morning.

He was most thankful Aunt Petunia had not closed it; the potential collision with the closed window would have been painful, embarrassing and obvious.

Flitting up the stairs quietly, he slipped into his room and softly closed the door behind him. He waited a tense ten minutes, but no letter from Dumbledore arrived, and then he knew his return, and his day long absence, had been undetected.

He smiled triumphantly and sprawled out on the bed surveying his now empty room. Apparently, during his drugged up state Aunt Petunia had caught Harry gnawing and slobbering over some of the broken toys littering the room, perhaps mistaking them for food. In fact, catching him grinning widely while licking the broken television had been the final straw and what had caused her to empty a bucket of cold water over him.

Luckily, Dudley had broken that television in his pre-teen years when he had had a slightly better understanding of personal hygiene, so Harry, once coherent, had only had to use half a bottle of mouth wash.

The thought of adding mouth wash to the gift basket full of Muggle hygiene products he was planning to give Snape on his graduation crossed his mind, and he thoughtfully added it to his mental list. Really, it was his way of helping future generations of Hogwarts students.

It seemed while Harry was out today, Aunt Petunia had removed all of the broken toys and appliances, perhaps afraid he would revert back to his state of the earlier few days, enraptured and totally unable to contain himself at the sight of the broken television. Honestly, if she had to worry about anyone and their unnatural attraction to the furniture it would have to be Dudley and the couch in front of the television in the sitting room, Harry expected to walk in on him humping it any day now.

Slightly tired now that the adrenaline that had been racing through his veins during his rush home was gone, he decided to relax by re-reading and trying to memorise the brewing instructions for the Revelation Potion in the short time until dinner.

Surprisingly, no comment was made over dinner about his absence all day, but then he was amusing himself by letting his aunt catch him gazing longingly at the television. Her twitching was providing excellent dinner time entertainment and helped distract him from Dudley's excuse for table manners.

Over the next few days he spent most of his time in his room practising the complex stirring techniques and the long and intricate sequence of ingredient additions for the Revelation Potion. He knew he looked like a complete pillock, stirring an empty cauldron and pretending to prepare and add ingredients, but the practise was essential as this potion was by far the trickiest to brew he had ever attempted. Because of this, he had bought enough ingredients for five attempts at the Revelation Potion, hopefully he would have been successful by the fifth attempt.

Aunt Petunia was becoming more and more paranoid over the next few days as he was amusing himself by letting her catch him hovering outside the sitting room or staring amorously at the television. It had come to the point that whenever his aunt heard him coming downstairs she rushed out into the hallway and guarded the entrance to the sitting room zealously.

Even Uncle Vernon and Dudley had begun to notice and Harry exacerbated the situation by looking at his aunt in a concerned fashion whenever her back was turned.

What was perhaps bothering his relatives more than the situation inside the house, was the situation outside the house. They simply could not understand their neighbour's new attitude to the Dursleys and to Harry. Where once the neighbours ignored or glared at Harry, they now smiled at him and called out greetings as they passed by. The Dursleys were now subjected to the same treatment Harry used to receive, a situation felt more keenly by Petunia then by any other member of the Dursley family. She had not been invited recently to any of the lunches or coffee sessions the other ladies participated in and had, to her horror, once overheard Mrs. Number Nine tutting with Mrs. Number Two over the disgraceful treatment that poor orphaned Potter boy received at her hands.

Again, Harry aggravated the situation with shy smiles at the neighbours and a nervous looks directed at his relatives if they were around, Mrs. Patterson had done her work well.

Later that day Harry set Monster, his newly named pet, to guard his bedroom door as he prepared to attempt to brew the Revelation Potion on a small portable gas cooker bought on his way back to Little Whining a few days ago. Monster absolutely loathed the Dursleys, Dudley in particular, and in return they were all terrified of him.

Harry had wandered out to the park the day after he had arrived home from shopping with Monster in his shrunken carrier concealed in one of his oversized sleeves. He had wandered through the park for a while, apparently moping, but had stopped by some bushes as if he had heard something. Tilting his head as if listening he had crept towards them and then swiftly plunged his hand into the bush while simultaneously opening the carrier and tipping Monster out. The next second he had withdrawn his hand now holding Monster with a triumphant look and had marched home to the Dursleys with his beloved new pet.

In preparation, Harry closed his bedroom window, pulled the blind, and blocked the bottom of the door to prevent any smells escaping using one of Dudley's larger old t-shirts. The potion would take eight hours of almost continual work to be properly brewed and Harry wanted to start early. Aunt Petunia was, thankfully, out for a few hours buying groceries and had, with a deeply suspicious look at Harry, locked every room containing a television before she left. Apparently she was too afraid of wizardly retribution to lock Harry in his bedroom.

He glanced at the expensive timer he had stolen from the kitchen and again checked all the alarms he had set on it were for the right times, rolling up his sleeves he turned on the cooker and began.

Four hours later Harry was exhausted and the potion ruined. It had congealed into a gelatinous-like mess in his cauldron with remarkable speed when he his attention had wandered and he had miscounted his stirring, but he had swiftly chipped it out before the mess had hardened and wrapped the noxious purple gunk in newspaper. Harry then crept into Dudley's room, patting Monster as he passed, and threw the ruined potion into his bin; he suspected no-one would notice the smell through the usual stench pervading his cousin's room.

He doubted the presence of the potion would have any ill effects on Dudley. In his experience, the botched potions that were going to be deadly had an almost immediate effect and the bin was being emptied the next day by Petunia as she made one of her desperate weekly attempts to clean her sons room to the same standard as the rest of her unnaturally clean house.

Harry had begun to aid her in this admirable goal by messing up the rest of the house whenever he could get away with it. Watching his aunt's frantic attempts to alphabetically reorder the books in the sitting room while glancing warily at him and his proximity to the television was an excellent way to occupy himself. It's the small things in life that keep him happy.

After rubbing some of the muscle soothing balm he had brewed into the aching muscles of his arms, he prepared his new work area for another attempt at brewing the Revelation Potion tomorrow. He had brewed a number of useful potions along with the potion of mental tranquillity during the last week of term when the others had been trapped in the hospital wing, envisioning his usual summer of heavy chores, and was thankful that he had. 'You can never have too many mind and bodily altering substances' would have to be his new motto.

The next day he had a now atypical early morning wander around the neighbourhood, during which he practised his moody yet sad face, and hoped it had improved from earlier in the summer and that he no longer looked like he was crapping himself when he pulled it.

These early morning walks had two main benefits; it allowed his guards to see he was still depressed and unproductively living in number four, and the second was that the neighbours on their way to work all noticed him and greeted him as they ignored Uncle Vernon. This drove his uncle crazy, but he could do nothing without making the situation worse and Harry had noticed that his uncle's face had developed a new colour. It was a sort of greenish red and even more unattractive than the usual angry purple present when he looked at Harry. He was most impressed, it seems you can teach an old dog new tricks, who would have known?

Attempt two at the Revelation Potion was also unsuccessful and had failed during the third hour when Harry had chopped the salamander nails half a centimetre too long, but attempt three later in the day had only failed on the seventh hour with another stirring mishap. After depositing the two additional failed attempts in Dudley's bin, which was getting quite full, Harry decided to practise once more. He had had a surprise during his practise when Dudley began to play music loudly, he had caught himself stirring to the beat and realised that he was finding it easier to stir and add his pretend ingredients, a much needed assist.

Harry had absolutely no intention of brewing potions to the crap that Dudley listened to; Uncle Vernon didn't listen to music while Petunias taste in music was dubious at best, so Harry just solved the problem by nicking Dudley's alarm clock while he slept. He didn't even have to creep into his cousin's bedroom, as his cousin was snoring loudly and stunk of alcohol, the smell noxious even at as far of a distance as Harry could physically keep from him.

The tissue paper shoved up his nostrils and the scarf covering his mouth were essential and Monster had actually recoiled when Harry had opened the door to his cousin's room. Harry was amazed on seeing that Dudley's bin was empty, and that the smell was from his cousin and had nothing to do with the botched potions,. He wondered if a healthy human being should be able to produce such a horrendous stench. He noticed that an alarm had been set for four in the morning but presumed that the only reason that Dudley would be getting up at that time was for reasons better left unsaid and unimagined.

The next morning Harry woke very early and after feeding both himself and Monster, set Monster to guard his door and he began his fourth attempt at the Revelation Potion. Eight hours later and with the potion perfectly matching the description in the text of the changes in both colour and texture at the different stages, Harry deemed it a success and immersed a scroll of parchment in the potion.

He set the timer for an hour and left for the kitchen. He was starving, bone tired and the continual concentration necessary to prevent mistakes had left him with a pounding headache.

An hour and a headache relieving potion later, he carefully withdrew the parchment, cut his finger and allowed seven drops of blood to fall onto the top of the parchment. Immediately shapes started to appear but they would take another ten minutes to be fully visible according to the text, so he busied himself with tidying away the extra ingredients and potions equipment. As he emptied the now useless potion down the toilet, he idly wondered what effect it would have on the plumbing before shrugging. He was hopefully not going to be around long enough to find out.

Ten minutes later and he was reading the list, thoughts of his trusty imaginary spork and its many wonderful yet painful uses again surfacing in his mind.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing...well except for what I actually own, but I own nothing to do with the Harry Potter books.**_

**Chapter Five**

The potion had done exactly what it was supposed to do, it showed all the magic, including names or incantations, of all the spells and potions currently affecting the brewer, the dates which they had been cast and the vessel through which they had reached their target. Most of the spells he didn't recognise offhand and had had to search for them in the books he had bought in 'The Suspicious Shop for the Suspicious'. That little shop catering to the wizarding world's weirdos, and that was saying something, really was a blessing in very deep disguise.

On Halloween when he was one, was an image of what he presumed was his mother's wand having cast an unknown spell, and right under it was his favourite dark lord's wand with a killing curse, the curling writing naming the spell was stained dark green indicating it had not entirely succeeded, but the fact it was included on the parchment showed it still affected him. This was worrying.

Monster sensing his distress curled up on his knee.

On September the seventh of that year, Dumbledore had cast no less than five blood based tracking spells, all of which, bar one, Harry was pleased to note, were highly illegal.

There was no more magic cast until he was eleven, leading him to believe there were either no blood wards, which was highly unlikely, or that the spell had been cast on Aunt Petunia, which was unsettling, as all a Death Eater had to do was to kill his chronically underfed aunt and the wards would collapse. For this reason, he presumed Dumbledore was having her guarded, he wondered if he should tell her about the spell on her and the fact wizards had probably been following her around for some time, her reaction was sure to be memorable. No. He decided to wait until he was leaving, it would be a wonderful parting gift to himself, perhaps a camera was in order.

And now for the next set of spells; some enterprising wizard had cast one on the first of August, the day he had first gone to Diagon Alley to pick up his school supplies, a tracking charm by the looks of it, strangely though, the wand that cast it was vaguely familiar.

There was another gap until the first of September, and the image and name of what was only one of the many reasons that he felt his spork rage rising . Beside the picture of a chocolate frog hopping around the parchment was the name of a rather potent power suppressor, one that affected him to this day.

Next on his little list of horrors was an abstraction potion showing up on the second of September, a quick check showed that he had been irregularly dosed throughout the year, every year. This would explain the attention span of a deranged gopher he was currently blessed with, though he must admit that his doodles were far better now than they had ever been.

Again, nothing appeared on the parchment util Halloween of first year, but beside the 31st of October, the night of the troll incident, was an image Dumbledore's wand and the name of a mind ordering charm. According to the aptly named 'Stop The Voices in Your Head Before They Stop You,' this charm made the mind far easier to read and more susceptible to suggestion. Luckily, this gem of a book also contained all sorts of useful information: tricks to stop your toe-nails growing, Occlumency , how to remove an invading spirit, and many interesting tips to help win arguments with those pesky mental voices.

He wondered if any would work on Voldemort, but on reflection doubted he would be distracted by Harry yelling 'Look! Over there! A giant wobbling cerulean distraction!' It was tempting though.

Below that, still on the 31st October, was a picture of his holly and phoenix feather wand with a series of charms cast upon it, spells to detect what spells were cast through his wand and at what power level they were cast.

Casting a spell on someone's wand was so highly illegal and considered morally wrong, that even he, with his extremely limited knowledge of the wizarding world knew it. A wand, once properly attuned to a wizard's magic, was basically an extension of a wizard, using another's wand without their permission was deemed incredibly invasive.

He wondered if Dumbledore was really that arrogant or if he believed Harry was firmly under his thumb. In either case, he was in for quite the surprise, Harry let out a brief cackle and Monster yipped along in what appeared to his version of an evil cackle. A true familiar, he showed loyalty to his wizard and his evil cackling ways, Harry was so proud. He was sure if Hedwig had been there she would have hooted along too.

Clearly, their cackling had not been as quiet as he had suspected as all noise from the breakfast table downstairs suddenly ceased and when it resumed it sounded almost hesitant. He had to remember the power of an evil laugh; it appeared to be yet another weapon to add to his ever growing arsenal against the Dursleys.

His revenge against them was by no means finished. The conversation with Mrs. Patterson had been unplanned yet the results had been highly gratifying. Oh, the things he was planning to do, they made him dreamy eyed with anticipation.

Snapping back to the potioned parchment, he saw that on the 27th of December Snape's wand appeared, having placed an obscure and generally untraceable tracking charm on him. What it gained in subtlety, it lost in accuracy and it could only give a vague location of the quarry, which explained why Snape always knew when he was wandering around Hogwarts at night and the many times he almost, but not quite, caught him.

Another tracking charm was present having been cast from an unknown wand in the middle of January, but this was a basic charm and a student could easily have cast it.

Looking through the scroll Harry was surprised he could even move with all the tracking charms cast on him over the years, they varied in complexity and he bet a good portion of them had been cast by students.

One wand he recognised in particular, it seems the little inbred albino had been busy during second year, and it did explain how he kept conveniently popping up with his obviously practised insults over the years. If Harry didn't know better, he would suspect the twat had a crush on him, like a five year old that pulled the pigtails of the girl he liked in the playground.

Another wand he recognised almost made him snort in amusement, he had gotten used to Colin Creevy appearing with his camera at random moments. Nevertheless, his obsession was more than slightly creepy and Harry knew he had to be dealt with before pictures of the boy-who-lived appeared in all his glory in Witch Weekly. The excitement might cause Ginny Weasley to drown in a puddle of her own saliva.

Harry realised that this meant there more than likely were some sort of potent wards around number four, though whether they were blood based and required his presence he could not tell. He was quite sure little Malfoy would have told his father where Harry was, if the man himself had no tracking charms on Harry, and Harry would have had some less than stylishly dressed wizardly company. Those white masks do nothing for the Death Eaters; well, perhaps something for Snape.

He presumed no-one had located him on his shopping jaunt a few days ago, as they had all believed he was snugly tucked away under strong wards and had not bothered to look. All tracking charms were dormant unless the one who cast it was actively seeking their quarry according to '3512 Ways to Avoid Capture,' a fact that made Harry realise how much time Snape must have on his hands.

On the 31st of May, at the end of his first year, and every year thereafter, Dumbledore's wand was pictured having cast an indolence charm, a charm that only functioned fully when coupled with the indolence potion, and made him lethargic and his magic sluggish. Right beneath this was a picture of one of the goblets found in the Great Hall which had apparently been coated in the indolence potion, as no liquid was present in the picture. The effects of this combination would be obvious during the school year, but helped keep him susceptible to what was probably a huge dose of the abstraction potion added to his food three times a day for the last two weeks of every school year.

He sighed, so many people to curse, so little time.

There were a few other petty spells and potions affecting him, including both basilisk venom and phoenix tears in second year, but none that caused such violence inducing rage.

He flicked though his collection of books, sure there was something that could help negate the effects of the various potions and spells affecting him, and there was; unluckily, there were few he could use at the moment.

He found a few potions that would remove the spells affecting him and three spells that would do so. Unfortunately, he could not do the spells over the summer, and the potions all required ingredients he didn't have. He did find a simple blocking potion to negate their effects temporarily, though he would have to take it every six hours until he could get them removed.

There were a number of methods to get rid of the potions currently affecting him, some messier than others and luckily for him, there was a remarkably simple potion he could make that would expel, through every possible orifice, all the potions in his bloodstream. He briefly wondered if it would get rid of the basilisk venom or phoenix tears floating around his bloodstream but dismissed that thought. Even if it did, he would hardly be able to collect a remotely pure sample from what he presumed would be a rather potent and noxious mix. He had a strong suspicion that no amount of galleons in the world were worth sorting though what would come out of his body.

As for the blood based tracking charms, he planned to leave a phial of blood in his room; it had tricked the tracking devices a few days ago, Dumbledore was no fool and had no doubt tied them to the wards around number four.

After an hour searching, he found a potion to destroy all of his blood currently outside his body, and therefore destroy all the charms and potions effecting him. Blood based charms functioned by charming an object dipped in the blood of the person you wanted to track, and Harry had a fair idea that some of the whirring objects in Dumbledore's office were these conduits. He hoped he had destroyed some of them during his 'episode' in the headmaster's office at the end of term.

He suspected drinking that potion would have little effect on Voldemort, he had had Harry's blood in his body for over a year and had doubtless undergone rituals and the such like, altering his blood beyond all recognition.

He set about brewing the purging potion; it was simple to brew and used common ingredients, probably perfected till that was the case as it was commonly used by almost every healer and potion brewer in the world.

An hour later it was ready and Harry ladled the correct quantity into a glass. He planned to strip off and take it while lying in the bath, he had to live in his room for a few more days after all, and the smell promised to be memorable. Fortunately, he had not eaten for over four hours so he could take it immediately.

He went downstairs and found the Dursleys watching the television together; he informed them that he was fumigating his room and told them not to enter. Before they could protest, he gravely reported that he was covered in wizarding bugs, invisible to Muggles, and that he had to both fumigate his room and dose himself with a potion in the bathroom away from the bugs, to prevent them from spreading through the house and eating the Muggle's ears.

He had his copy of the 'Monster Book of Monsters' in his arms and offered to show them a picture of what they looked like, but the convenient shudder the book gave, along with the title on the front caused all three to shrink away, so Harry just left the room without another word, only letting his smile blossom when he was half way up the stairs.

Harry left Monster to guard his room with strict instructions to bite any Dursley that came near his room, though this was perhaps a little excessive as when he had left them in the sitting room, the Dursleys had looked too scared to move from the couch, but it made Monster look a little happier.

He entered the bathroom and locked the door firmly behind him. Stripping he got into the empty bath and making sure the plug was open turned on the shower. He lined up a few of his relatively basic healing potions on the floor beside the bath and with a salute to Vernon's not-so-very-secret rubber duck, downed the horrible concoction and waited for it to take effect.

Almost immediately every part of his body started to tingle, and not in a good way tingle, but if a tingle could be ominous it would be like this. Then pain hit, blinding crippling pain that made him feel like he was on fire, every part of his body hurt and he was dimly aware that he was thrashing about.

What seemed like hours later and was probably only a few minutes, his awareness returned and he realised what exactly he was covered in. Feeling like he had just been through Quidditch training with Wood, he washed himself and after waiting around ten minutes, downed the much needed healing potions.

The next morning, after dragging himself painfully to bed the day before, he woke up feeling ravenous but far more energetic than he could remember in some time. Looking at the calendar on his wall, he realised he was meeting Dean tomorrow to travel to Seamus' house in Ireland together.

He had little to pack, having left most of his purchases with Seamus and so he went to find food, idly informing his aunt and cousin that he was cured and that they were safe, for now. He had to add the 'for now', it wiped the look of relief right off his aunt's face.

Later that afternoon, having packed and both brewed and stored a large quantity of the blocking potion, he decided to pass the time helping Monster play his favourite game with Dudley. Monster had been so good today, peeing all over the sitting room, and definitely deserved a reward. The sheer quantity of urine involved and the area covered was very impressive and had no doubt taken a great deal of time and effort.

He informed Monster of his intentions who looked almost like he was going to wet himself with excitement, and carried his beloved pet into Dudley's room.

The fat boy looked up as the door slowly opened to see Harry standing in the doorway with his pet cradled in his arms. Dudley's eyes widened with fear as he recognised what the grin plastered on Harry's face meant. The smile widened slightly as Monster yipped, indicating he was ready for the game to begin. Harry carefully adjusted Monster's position, narrowing his eyes as he watched his cousin's attempts to escape.

'Krup to the face,' was heard as Monster flew through the air towards to the fat boy, his tails wagging wildly in excitement and tongue lolling out of his mouth.

'Monster is going to miss his games with Dudley when we leave,' he thought sadly as he watched the krup playing enthusiastically with his cousin.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing...well except for what I actually own, but I own nothing to do with the Harry Potter books.**_

**Chapter Six**

Harry awoke early the next morning, sure all these early morning starts were unhealthy for a teenage boy. A small snore drew his attention to Monster, and he glanced down to see him still sleeping, curled up at the foot of his bed. He smiled fondly at the sleeping krup, the poor puppy had tired himself out completely playing with Dudley.

When he had mentioned to Monster last night that they were leaving the next morning, Monster had looked so forlornly at Dudley that Harry had sat down and explained to the krup how they couldn't take Dudley with them, and that he was simply too large and wouldn't fit in any of his bags, but he had perked up slightly when Harry had suggested that he might find someone else to play with when they returned to school. The krup had still looked so sad, that Harry had decided to get him a voodoo doll of Dudley for Christmas.

Hedwig on the other hand, looked delighted to be leaving the Dursleys permanently, while, perhaps due to the influence of Monster, she too had developed a fun summer game, she seemed to remember the previous summers of being locked in her cage.

With a yawn he rolled out of bed and grabbed some of his old clothes, idly noticing the transfiguration and charms were wearing off. After dressing he crept downstairs for a bite to eat, filling up for what he was sure would be a busy day later. He brought the last of the bacon up for Monster, knowing that Monster would enjoy the bacon all the more in the knowledge that he was denying the Dursleys their customary breakfast. Harry often wondered why wizards did not seem to realise how intelligent most magical animals were, flobber worms and Crabbe and Goyle aside, they often seemed to have an air of amused tolerance around wizards; when they were not actively trying to kill them that is. He harboured suspicions of house elves in particular, they always seemed a little too pathetic and eager to please. That, and they were both conveniently present and ignored in every major wizarding establishment in the world. A little too convenient for his tastes, but then he was the one who suspected he was being watched by invisible people.

He woke Monster who, as he suspected he would, wolfed the bacon down with admirable speed when he told him it was the last in the fridge, though for some reason he left one slice on the plate.

Almost an hour later, Harry heard the usual noises of the Dursleys settling down to breakfast, which was soon interrupted by a bellow from his uncle who must have learned that Harry had taken the last of the bacon. On hearing this Monster picked up his slice of bacon and sauntered down the stairs to the kitchen, curious Harry followed him to be met with a hilarious sight. Monster had settled on the floor and was noisily, and with great relish licking and chewing on the strip of bacon; both Petunia and Vernon were speechless with outrage, while Dudley seemed torn between terror and tackling the small krup for the bacon.

Predictable to a tee, Vernon's face showed signs of what he recognised as the beginnings of a truly magnificent colour changing cycle, but was prematurely aborted by Monster. On happily finishing the last of the bacon, he casually wandered over to Vernon, cocked a leg and peed on his foot. Even Harry was struck dumb by the sight, he had thought Monster had not understood his badly drawn diagrams and scribbled calculations on the exact angle that would be best for peeing on his uncle. The krup was a genius, the angle was perfect for maximum foot coverage. With an impressed look directed at the krup he swept out of the room, it was time for him to leave Number Four Privet Drive for good.

While Dudley was being distracted by Monster last night, Harry had broken into his not-so-secret stash of spray paints. At around one in the morning, with a bag full of aerosols on one shoulder and Hedwig on the other shoulder acting as a lookout, he had crept out of the house.

'Oh how the mighty have fallen,' must have been the thoughts of his invisible minders as Harry had sprayed badly spelled insults on all the houses surrounding number four. Harry took the time to explain what each of the insults meant to Hedwig, and how they were properly spelled as he sprayed them, one is never too old to learn after all. And she certainly seemed pleased with some of the explanations. After around twenty minutes, they had even worked out a crude system of hoots through which Hedwig offered her opinion on which insults should be used on which house.

On returning to his room after breakfast he told Hedwig that it was time to get into Monster's heavily padded travel carrier, which she did with minimal fuss. He had had a long discussion last night with her after they had returned, in which he informed her that she, being a most beautiful owl, was far too conspicuous and well known as his familiar, and that an owl flying around low in the daytime was extremely noticeable. During this discussion, he had asked her if she had had any spells cast on her, to which she replied with a shake of her head and an extremely smug look. Harry thought it best not to ask.

He picked up his backpack containing the shrunken shopping bags filled with the remainder of his recent purchases, along with important items such as his invisibility cloak and his school supplies, and headed down the stairs and to the small side window through which he had made his dramatic return a few days ago.

Monster followed him into the room, a foxy grin on his whiskered face. Harry picked him up, ready and waiting for the neighbours to realise the state of their houses and the fact that number four was completely untouched.

There it was. He would have felt guilty for the vandalism if the neighbours had not spent years sneering at him and tutting over his appearance. Within moments, what seemed like the whole neighbourhood was on the streets, wailing in the case of Mr. Number Seven, and shouting in the case of everyone else. Seriously, that man needed to grow some, he was the type of man who made you wonder if his children looked perhaps a little bit too much like the milkman.

Slower than he would have expected, the first person noticed the unblemished state of number four, and what had the makings of a good mob descended on the Dursley residence.

The doorbell rang, this was his cue. He tossed Monster out the window into the hedge and leapt after him. As he tore through the hedges he heard Vernon loudly accusing him of the vandalism to which Mrs. Patterson was heard exclaiming that he was a poor mistreated orphan and that clearly the only one who would have done such a thing was his porky-good-for-nothing-son. The voices soon petered out, but from the last he heard the police were being called. A vicious smile spread across his face as he ran, crouching as low as he could, across Mr. Number Twenty-two's back garden.

With a mental sigh of relief, he burst through the last hedge and noticed his bus coming round the corner. He quickly ripped open his bag and hurriedly ushered Monster into the carrier alongside Hedwig, glad he had bought the deluxe model. With a snap he closed the bag, just as the doors opened, the driver gave him a sympathetic smile as he paid his fare and with a jolt he recognised the driver as the same one from his recent journey back to Little Whining and he immediately pasted a resigned yet brave smile on his face.

The smile had an unfortunate effect on the driver whose expression changed to a frightening familiar one on a grown man, he looked as if he was about to hug Harry or carry him off home to keep him safe. Harry easily recognised that look. Mrs. Weasley got that look a lot. He nervously edged his way to a seat near the back of the bus, trying to look well fed.

Harry hopped off the bus and after finding his next bus stop entered a nearby cafe, he had an hour to kill and a craving for tea. Anyone who was around Seamus for an extended period of time got odd cravings for tea for days afterwards. Dean seemed to be the only one immune, but then he did drink obscene amounts of coffee.

He ordered some breakfast and left to change into a set of his new clothes in the bathroom, carefully checking up on his pets in the meantime. All well, he sauntered back to his table giving the waitress a roguish wink on the way. As the middle aged woman blushed and giggled slightly, he wondered how he had previously failed to notice this formidable weapon in his arsenal, the legendary Potter charm.

Eight cups of tea and four bathroom breaks later, he left a generous tip and went to wait the ten minutes for his bus. His watch beeped and he quickly downed a dose of the foul tasting and almost sandy textured negating potion. He had raided the medicine cabinet in the Dursleys and on making sure none of the medicines were essential, emptied all of the smaller bottles into the bin, washed them, and carefully re-filled them each with the negating potion, enough for one dose.

He had only picked the smaller bottles that could be easily concealed within his hand, the frequency with which the potion had to be taken ensured he would be taking it in public on occasion and he had no intention of being tackled by some well meaning individual trying to foil what looked like an inept suicide attempt.

The bus arrived, late as per usual, and Harry got on with a resigned sigh. To throw off The Order, or whoever would eventually be tracking him, Harry was taking a variety of buses criss-crossing England and only heading to the coast in a very general direction.

While necessary, this meant he was spending nearly the whole day on public transport and getting off at random stops to leave a scrap of clothes soaked in his blood. Anyone scrying for him would get a number of different results, giving him that extra little bit of time if need be. He doubted Dumbledore would fail to notice any magic he cast, and so had to cut his arm every time he wanted to leave a false trail, all the while hoping that the bloody scraps he hid would not be found and used by a wizard with less than helpful intentions before he could brew the potion to make his blood useless outside of his body.

A small fortune and seven hours later, a very grumpy, nauseous and sore boy-who-lived staggered off the last bus to be met with Dean's smiling face. He opened his mouth to speak, but on noticing just how irritable Harry looked, wisely closed it, instead gently steering his friend towards a small restaurant.

After a much needed meal, and a surreptitious healing potion, Harry was finally feeling far more human again and ready to talk.

'How long was your journey?' Dean asked, a trace of caution still present in his tone.

'It was horrible, I made a list of spells to memorise but felt bus-sick after only an hour, and got asked if I wanted to become a man behind a petrol station by an old pervert.'

Dean promptly burst out laughing.

'Stop laughing, it was traumatising. The man was sixty if he was a day.'

By now Dean was almost crying with laughter, so Harry decided to wait till later, when he had a proper audience on which to vent his woes.

A few minutes later, and still chuckling slightly, Dean checked his watch and declared it time they headed to the ferry. They were travelling by Muggle ferry, as the movements of wizards into and out of Britain were closely watched by a variety of interested parties, none of whom Harry wanted to alert to his position.

Dean had already bought the tickets and the pair walked towards the boat, Harry repressing the urge to break into a run.

As the boat left the harbour, the last sailing of the day, one thought of the many that drifted through Harry's mind stuck out:

'Cleaning out Monster's travelling case is going to take hours.'


	7. Chapter 7

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing...well except for what I actually own, but I own nothing to do with the Harry Potter books.**_

**Chapter Seven**

The ferry arrived in Ireland a few hours later and the two were met by a rather excited Seamus. Apparently, his beloved grandmother had decided to visit. Dean, after hearing Seamus use the name 'Grammy', immediately began mocking Seamus, but Harry had noticed the odd little smile playing on Seamus lips and decided discretion was the better part of valour and so remained silent.

After a few insults from Dean and no reply from Seamus, he too, noticed the look on Seamus face and trailed off with a worried look on his face. The rest of the short walk to the Portkey point was mostly silent, interspersed with anxious looks Dean kept directing at Seamus. Harry would have found all this funny if not for the exhaustion and slight apprehension he was feeling. Seamus' mother had not believed Harry last year and Harry was getting more worried about his reception in the Finnegan house the closer they approached.

Harry had pointed this out to Seamus when the invitation to visit had been extended, and Seamus had reassured him that his mother had not really concerned herself with Harry last year, her main issue was with Dumbledore. All of his mother's family couldn't stand Dumbledore's politics and occasionally the man's name was used as an insult in the Finnegan household. Even his father, a Muggle, also had issues with Dumbledore and the way his policies affected the Irish wizarding community a community he was now a part of.

The main magical school in Ireland had lost a good deal of both its funding and students with Dumbledore's victory over Grindelwald. Admittedly, that was to be initially expected with Dumbledore teaching in Hogwarts, but his refusal to acknowledge the Finegas Academy as one of the major European magical schools caused the decline of a once respected school. He once famously dismissed it as a 'school for aspiring hedge witches' during his earlier and less politically savvy years.

There were many theories as to why Dumbledore had sought to ruin the Finegas Academy. One of the most popular was that he wished to increase the enrolment in his alma mater, which had been suffering due to the war. Many British students had sought an education in Ireland, which was neutral like its Muggle counterpart during the war. Closing the Finegas Academy would cause young Irish wizards and witches to seek their education abroad, and it was likely those Irish students would travel to England for schooling rather than to the other large wizarding schools on the continent, to avoid language barriers. Furthermore, the British students in the Finegas Academy would doubtless turn to Hogwarts for their schooling. Another popular theory was that he and the headmaster of the Finegas Academy, Professor Conaghan, who was rumoured to have silently supported Grindelwald, were long time enemies and Dumbledore sought revenge using his newfound fame and popularity. In the opinion of Seamus' Grammy, a combination of both was most likely, although she firmly rejected accusations that Professor Conaghan was a supporter of Grindelwald, claiming these rumours only spread after Dumbledore's victory.

Nevertheless, the academy had not recovered after the initial sharp drop in attendance in the early 1950's and had continued with a steady decline to such an extent that nowadays Finegas Academy was more of a museum than a school, the majority of young Irish wizards and witches receiving their education abroad. If Dumbledore had intended to bring the Irish students to Hogwarts he failed, as after an initial influx of Irish students the rest turned to Durmstrang, finding English teachings and culture far too different to the Irish. In fact, the only Irish students that attended Hogwarts were half-bloods like Seamus, as the young English magical culture, except for the elite, were far more in tune with their Muggle counterparts and by and large ignored the old ways and traditions.

The Irish magical population had not suffered the losses the English had during the wars and the magical population in Ireland had always been far larger than that of England to start with. Therefore, mixed marriages in Ireland were relatively rare and there was little stigma attached to Muggle-borns or half bloods who were only a tiny fraction of the Irish magical society with its high number of pure bloods. On the other hand the Muggle-borns had little political power but avoided prejudice as the old families were not threatened by the incoming number of Muggle-borns bringing their culture with them.

They reached the Portkey terminal and Seamus activated the old sock with a word, there were a few seconds of nauseating colour before the three of them slammed into the ground, Harry the only one sprawled on the ground.

Harry took a quick glance around from his ground height position to see a fairly large stone house made granite. It did not look too old, perhaps a century or so, and was surrounded by rich green fields dotted with horses.

'I'm guessing no-one's told you how to use Portkeys properly, then?' Seamus said frowning down at Harry as he offered his hand.

'I don't think the Weasleys know to be honest. When we took the Portkey to the world cup the only ones left standing were the adults and Cedric.'

'Well it takes either quite a bit of practise or good balance to get right but I'm sure the Weasleys know the theory behind it. Honestly, I sometimes forget how thick Ron can be.'

'Well I see you're still standing' Harry pointed out to Dean as he wiped some grass off his clothes

'I, unlike you lesser mortals, have excellent balance. Actually I know a bit of kick boxing so my balance is pretty damn good.' Dean retorted smugly looking around. 'That and I visit Seamus all the time which involves getting a hell of a lot of Portkeys.'

'Well, are you going to enlighten me anytime soon?'

'And lose what promises to be a valuable source of entertainment? I think not.' Dean responded.

'I'll tell you what I told that woman in the store, remember, the hot one who slipped her phone number into my back pocket before slapping my bum on the way out...'

'Deal,' and both Dean and Seamus shook his hands.

'I lent in and whispered in her ear...'

Both leaned forward slightly in anticipation

'My name's Harry.'

There was a brief pause, 'That's it? That's all you said and you got a hot older woman to spank you?' Seamus exclaimed in disbelief

'What can I say, if you've got it, you've got it. Looks like these are a formidable weapon, it's just not a method that can be thought to you lesser mortals.' Harry replied with a broad grin as he bent down to retrieve Monster's carrier.

Harry glanced up at the silent Dean.

'Harry, I hate you and wish you were humped to death by a rabid house elf in drag.'

All were silent for a moment as they processed this image

'It's always the quiet imaginative ones you have to watch out for isn't it?' Seamus said as both he and Harry looked at Dean with matching expressions, a mixture of nausea and wariness.

Harry finally managed to free Hedwig and Monster who both set to exploring the surrounding area.

'Harry I think you'd better call Monster back, Grammy has a pet cerberus, Reginald, and he barely tolerates me, let alone another canine.'

'You've nothing to worry about, Monster is quite exceptional.'

They were interrupted by the appearance of a large cerberus racing towards Monster who, on spotting it yipped his admittedly cute battle cry, and flung himself towards the monstrous dog. Both Dean and Seamus had drawn their wands, preparing to rescue the small krup, but Harry held them back.

'They're going to meet at some point, it might as well be now.'

Their sceptical looks were soon wiped off their faces as they watched in awe as Monster thoroughly showed the cerberus why exactly size doesn't matter.

'Monster is....' Dean trailed off as he turned to a proud looking Harry

'Yes, he is quite the angry little krup. I think he has the canine version of small man syndrome and fights dirty enough to back it up. Within a day of my bringing him back to Surrey he had every animal in Little Whining, and quite a few small children, either terrified of him or fanatically loyal to him. You have not lived until you've seen a gang of nine-year-olds looking to a krup for leadership.' Harry replied not taking his eyes off the fight.

Dean blinked and returned to watching Monster and Reginald, wincing as the krup bit the cerberus where no male should ever be bitten – who knew all three heads could squeal in harmony? That was the end of the fight as Reginald, as soon as he was released, fled behind the house, two of the heads turned to watch Monster.

Monster trotted back to Harry, his tails waving jauntily, and leapt into the boys arms.

'I am very proud of you, but please refrain from licking me until I've cast a few cleaning charms on your mouth,' Harry said as he dodged a lick aimed at his face.

Hedwig landed on his shoulder and hooted softly in approval having scouted the area and deemed it acceptable. Along with Monster, she had seemed to have taken on the role of bodyguard and had become fiercely protective as the predatory manner in which she was eyeing Dean and Seamus showed. After a few tense seconds she seemed to have deemed them acceptable and self-importantly ruffled her feathers. Monster seemed to be approaching his self appointed bodyguard duties from a different angle, instead of threatening he just did something incredibly vicious in front of people and dared them to approach him afterwards. It worked well for him as indicated by the looks on Dean and Seamus' faces.

Seamus opened the front door and beckoned the two inside. At first glance, the inside of the house, along with the outside, seemed completely non-magical, but looking closer Harry noticed a few magical items, such as the bag of floo powder on the mantelpiece and a few of the more tame magical plants dotted around the house.

'Dad is probably in the yard putting some of the horses in the stables, but mum and Grammy are around somewhere. I'll just show you where you're staying. You're in your usual room Dean beside mine, and Harry is on the other side. The downstairs is mostly Muggle and we have a guest room down there for non-magical people, but the upstairs is magical so there's plenty of room.' Seamus explained as he led them upstairs to their rooms.

The top floor was clearly expanded and the guest room Harry was staying in was obviously magical from the magical painting with a herd of horses grazing and occasionally trotting around, to the magical clock with times like 'dinner time' and 'you're late'.

He was interrupted from his observations by a woman's voice calling Seamus downstairs and the three headed down. Seated in the sitting room below was an old woman who was clearly the much beloved Grammy.

Grammy was dressed in beautifully cut, at least as far as he could tell, blue robes and would have struck a stately figure if not for the large pipe she was smoking which was emitting puffs of scentless bright pink smoke. Her eyes were shrewd in her wrinkled face and she observed both Dean and Harry closely making Dean shift from foot to foot uncomfortably, but Harry was used to Dumbledore's penetrating looks and so was relatively unphased.

'So you're the best friend, Muggle-born aren't you? Doesn't matter, you look like you've a head on your shoulders. I hear you're an artist, clever boy, girls go wild for the arty type, some boys too. You're handsome also, I'll bet that helps get the ladies. Dating anyone? No? Never mind. You can come sit beside me, I like handsome young men.'

Dean stood there for a moment looking absolutely gobsmacked until Harry gently nudged him in the direction of the old woman, which brought her attention once again to Harry. Seamus at this point had a wide grin on his face and seemed to be enjoying himself immensely.

'And you're the famous boy-who-lived. Also very handsome, I knew a grandson of mine would have good taste in friends. Somewhat pretty looking though, your features are a little delicate, not to worry your body more than makes up for it.'

It seemed she would continue in this vein for a while longer but the door was nudged open by Monster who trotted over to Harry and sat down in between him and the old woman, Hedwig flew in a few seconds later to land on his shoulder and both fixed their gazes on her.

She paused, 'If you think I'm going to be impressed by a little trick with your familiars you are much mistaken young man.'

'Grammy, I don't think that was planned'. Seamus said interrupting his grandmother 'His familiars are both freakishly smart and extremely vicious. Monster there took apart Reginald in a few minutes flat.'

The old woman's face was amused and slightly incredulous until Monster gave his patented whiskery grin that exposed one of his canines, and her expression melted back into a calm facade but Harry thought he detected a hint of admiration.

'Madam, it is a great pleasure to meet you, ever since Seamus told us of his wonderful grandmother both Dean and I have been greatly anticipating out meeting with you,' Harry said with a small bow in her direction

She broke into a grin. 'I see you're quite the charmer and I do like that in a man. I think you and I shall get along well, boy-who-lived or not.'

Harry replied with a roguish grin while Dean's slightly traumatised look had been replaced by a smothered smile.

'Madam, if I might ask of favour of you later.'

'I'll have you know young man that my husband is alive and well.'

Seamus wore an expression of mingled admiration and envy, while Dean was shaking slightly with repressed laughter, you could almost see him thinking of this as blackmail material.

'Alas, I shall have to ask another favour of you instead. Dumbledore, in all his great wisdom, has placed a good deal of tracking charms and the such like on me. I was hoping you might aid me in the removal of said spells. I have the incantations but think some of them may be a little beyond me.'

'Nothing would please me more than to thwart that vindictive, amoral old man,' she said, her eyes gaining a slightly feral edge.

Harry grinned again in reply and was interrupted by a gentle ringing.

'Now, I'm sure you lot are hungry, all young men are. We decided to have a late dinner, which is now ready. Come which of you gentlemen shall accompany me?'

Dean, having recovered from his laughing fit gallantly offered his arm. 'Nothing would give me more pleasure madam.'

She chuckled, 'You should invite your friends around more often dear, I foresee an interesting stay,' she said to Seamus as Dean swept her into the dining room.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing...well except for what I actually own, but I own nothing to do with the Harry Potter books.**_

_A/N: I've had a few people proclaim their love for Grammy and lucky for them it appears she'll be playing a big part in the next chapter as well, I do thoroughly enjoy writing her so I'm almost as pleased. Happy reading ___

**Chapter Eight**

After an enjoyable dinner in which Harry had been re-acquainted with Seamus' mother and introduced to his father, Harry, exhausted from his escape to Ireland from Surrey headed up to bed early.

'You two aren't to stay up late gossiping about make-up and the boys you think are hot like you usually do are you? I've noticed Dean in particular is starting to develop some rather lovely breasts, must be all the girly art and pictures of the oh-so-pretty footballers plastered on your walls in the dorms,' Harry threw back over his shoulder as he headed into his room.

The black boy just gave him the finger as Harry walked up the stairs.

He heard chuckling and whipped his head around to see Grammy standing at the top of the stairs. 'If I were ninety years younger and unmarried, you my young fellow would be in a lot of trouble.'

'If I were thirty years older, lovely lady, I would be attempting to seduce you right now,' was his reply.

'I would hope you would be better at it than this.'

He gave her a smouldering look.

'You couldn't keep up, young men these days, no stamina.'

'You forget though that I am the amazing boy-who-lived, and have all sorts of incredible powers.'

She let out another chuckle looping her arm though his, and he walked with her along the surprisingly long corridor to the doorway at the very end.

'Madam, are you trying to seduce me? I must know if I am to put up a token resistance.'

She just leered slightly in reply as he opened the door and gallantly bowed her into the room.

The room was a tastefully decorated sitting room with a few doors leading off it, one presumably to her bedroom proper, and Harry caught sight of what looked like a small greenhouse through an open door.

'Come sit. I promise not to ravish you,' she said as she arranged her robes about her before sitting in one of the elegant chairs.

'I'm afraid I cannot promise the same thing,' he replied with his increasingly common roguish grin.

She flashed one last smile at him before her expression turned serious.

'I presume you used the Revelation Potion or some variant of it. I need to know what exactly was cast on you before I can decide how to remove the spells affecting you, and what order to remove them in.'

Harry directed a sharp look at the old woman as he considered whether or not he could trust her, at the back of his mind upset with Dumbledore for destroying most of his faith in his fellow wizards. As if on cue a scratching was heard at the door and Harry got up to open it, letting Monster and Hedwig into the room.

'What do you think?' he asked the two who directed their gazes at the elderly woman.

He knew she absolutely loathed Dumbledore with far more intensity than she liked him, and would doubtless have few qualms about using the information to destroy the long time object of her hatred, something he could ill afford now. With the start of what promised to be a long and bloody war against Voldemort, their already disorganised ranks could ill afford more dissension, or the potential loss of such a powerful ally. That, and Harry planned to blackmail the hell out of him.

Under the prolonged, unblinking gazes of the three she barely stopped herself from shifting uncomfortably, something Harry found highly amusing.

'I want a wizard's oath stating that you will not reveal anything pertaining to me to any party either physically or magically without my explicit, uncoerced permission. Oh, and you will also never disclose any information about me by name or by implication without ensuring there is no chance you could be overheard.'

The need for such an oath seemed to interest her greatly and she visibly hesitated running the exact wording over in her head to look for loopholes, but after a few moments she scowled slightly, apparently having found none.

She opened her mouth to perhaps try to change the wording of the oath or avoid it completely, but the amused look on Harry's face and raised eyebrow put paid to that idea.

'Not just a pretty face aren't you? I am impressed with my grandson. Perchance a larger birthday present is due this year. Now, tell old Grammy how she can help you.'

The smile on his face grew 'I have an itch and...'

She interrupted with a chuckle, 'I see you're not to be dissuaded.'

'How could I be? We are in this room all alone together and I'm sure you know an excellent silencing charm.'

'Go get the parchment and bring it back here. I'll be waiting.'

'Naked?' he asked with a hopeful look on his face

'Smoking,' she said as she lit up her pipe with the tip of her wand.

'Tease'

After a few minutes searching through his trunk he unearthed the carefully concealed parchment and returned to find the old lady studiously ignoring the unblinking gazes of Hedwig and Monster. Puffs of cloud shaped like roses and carrying the flower's sweet scent drifted around her.

'I'm sure you're feeling most loved at the moment,' he said gesturing at the two animals

She removed the pipe from her mouth.

'One of the reasons I considered helping you was the behaviour of your familiars.'

He glanced from the old woman to the two animals.

'Yes, and they are clearly brimming with love and good cheer towards you at the moment.'

She snorted in an unladylike manner

'I don't think they dislike me, I know they don't trust me. I met a very powerful wizard once when I was young, whose familiar was a common house cat and it did not display half the intelligence or loyalty as these two do.'

Hedwig hooted in a certain pattern, that if he remembered the code correctly, was something extremely rude. He was impressed at the creative and varied use of the swear words he had thought her, something that must have shown on his face.

Grammy looked mildly impressed, 'You understood what she just said, didn't you?'

'Well, there was an incident a few days ago where I might have taught her a few swear words, and we might have worked out a system of hoots and inflections for each one,' he replied slightly sheepishly.

'I don't know how much Seamus told you about me, but I can tell you now that I am long retired, that for fifty years I worked in the Irish ministry as what in Britain you call an unspeakable, a ridiculous name really.

In my early years I studied familiars and the bond they have with wizards, and though there is still much debate around that topic, one thing was universally acknowledged as true: the level of power and intelligence a familiar displays is directly correlated to the power and intelligence of the wizard they are bonded to.

No normal krup can win in a one-on-one physical fight with a cerberus, and no normal owl can curse, in what appears a spectacular manner, from the length of that hooting.'

Harry looked at his familiars who had puffed up in pride and murmured softly, 'Then you have an idea of the level of the games we are caught up in.'

She just winked at him and gestured towards the scroll with a languid wave of her hand.

'The oath first please.'

She looked slightly rueful as she flicked her wrist and the tip of her wand lit up.

'I will not reveal anything pertaining to Harry James Potter to any party either physically or magically without his explicit, uncoerced permission. Furthermore, I will never disclose any information about Harry James Potter by name or by implication without ensuring there is no chance I could be overheard. I so swear on pain of death.'

As she progressed through the oath the light from the tip of her wand curved up and touched her heart, mouth, hands and forehead then shooting out to join to the tip of Harry's wand.

'So mote it be.'

'So mote it be,' she replied sealing the oath and ending the light show.

She swiftly and gracefully began twitching and swishing her wand, streams of varied hued light leapt out and struck the walls of the room, spreading and coating it in layers of what were probably obscuring and concealing wards. After a few long minutes of rapid casting, she returned her wand to what was probably a holster hidden in the sleeve of her robe and he silently handed over the scroll of parchment into her waiting hand. He sat back to comfortably watch her now expressionless face as she very slowly read through it, silently puffing on her pipe.

It was obvious to the amused wizard when she got to the part about the spells on his wand as she actually dropped her pipe in her shock and didn't notice Monster carefully creep forward to retrieve it, nor did she notice Harry carefully rescuing it.

Now holding the parchment with both slightly trembling hands, an expression of outrage which grew grimmer as she continued to read was clear on her face.

She finished reading the scroll and spent a few minutes clearly repressing what promised to be a spectacular reaction.

Finally she turned to him with the most severe and forbidding look he had ever seen anyone wear, McGonagall would have wept in envy had she seen it.

'Ever since the episode with dear Fionn Conaghan and the Finegas Academy, I have thoroughly disliked that man, but never did I believe he was capable of such cruelty and disregard for his fellow wizard. He has shamed himself and all that ally themselves with him.'

Both Monster and Hedwig seemed to agree with her though their method of showing it was quite different.

Monster jumped into her lap and let the trembling witch pet him mechanically as she battled with her disbelief and horror. Hedwig let forth a hooting stream of expletives that would have made the hardiest sailor blush. He was again incredibly impressed with her imagination and spent a few quiet moments explaining to her why most of those actions were anatomically impossible for a human. The vindictive and predatory expression present in her unusually expressive eyes, along with her claws almost snapping the top of the chair she was perched on, plainly stated that she had every intention of forcing Dumbledore to at least attempt them.

He turned from his failed attempts to soothe his clearly maliciously vengeful owl to meet the amused eyes of Grammy.

'Should you ever desire to let your familiars deal with Albus, I, along with a good number of people, will pay you significant amounts of money for the pensieve memory, or failing that, the pictures.'

'Are you sure you wouldn't like any other pictures?' he asked with a smouldering look, effectively breaking the tension. 'I can tell you on good authority that I look absolutely devastating with my Quidditch robes on, and can promise you I look ever better with them off.'

'That look is a formidable weapon young man, I hope you use it well.'

'Oh I will, I promise' he replied with a cheeky grin.

'Now what steps have you taken?'

'I took a purging potion, not the most pleasant experience, which should have wiped out all the potions affecting me. I brewed a blocking potion which I take every six hours, negating all the spells but the blood ones and I know a few ways that can get rid of them. I have no idea what to do about the tampering with my wand though.'

When he mentioned the spells on his wand her expression darkened again and the tension arose once more.

'That man...' she ground out from between clenched teeth.

'I do apologise, but I do not know if you are aware of what an extraordinary violation tampering with someone's wand is,' she said as her fingers twitched convulsively around her wand.

'Oh, I have an idea,' he replied grimly as Hedwig snapped her beak violently and Monster let out a low menacing growl.

This seemed to snap her out of her dark thoughts and returned the expression of mild humour she generally wore to her face.

'Yes, a good deal of money for those memories' she said gazing at Hedwig's sharp and powerful claws.

'Now show me what you were planning to do to remove both the blood based spells and the ordinary spells,' she said, to which he handed over another smaller role of parchment.

'These are all very feasible,' she said thoughtfully after reading through the scroll, 'but I may have a better idea. How do you feel about rituals? Not one of those ridiculous dark rituals involving unreasonable numbers of virgins, but one of the so-called light rituals?'

'I had no idea there were light rituals.'

'I'm not all that surprised. They're not something you learn about in school, they're information passed through the family. All families have their own grimoires and individual spells, but there are some generic and relatively well known, to the right people, helpful healing rituals.'

'And you are one of the right people?'

'Looks and brains, as I've said you'll go far. Now, as you may or may not know, many of the most important buildings in the wizarding world are situated where they are for specific reasons. Rituals were far more common in ages past, before wands developed such prominence, and rituals are composed of a number of incredibly specific elements, essential for any degree of success.

'Buildings such as Hogwarts, the Finegas Academy and the various other schools and ministries were built in those locations for reasons such as the potency of lay lines, which is the most significant factor in the case of Hogwarts, and their position in relation to the stars and certain patterns correlating with the elements, in the case of the Finegas Academy.

'I am good friends with Professor Conaghan who retains his position at the academy, mostly in the capacity of librarian, nowadays. I'm sure he will let us use one of the various ritual rooms and areas of the Academy. Normally, every ritual site in the Academy is full on midsummer's day due to the increased potency of certain rituals on that day, ours in particular, but I'm confident he will find a discreet area for us to perform the ritual somewhere in the Academy.'

'What will the ritual do and what will we need? Midsummer's day is very soon and I have no intention of failing in a ritual, light or not. I've seen ol' snake face himself, he's a walking warning against miscast rituals.'

'Really? Snake face? I wonder what ritual caused that..' she began, but Harry swiftly cut off that train of thought with a gesture at Monster who farted noisily, he had spent long enough around Hermione to recognise the beginnings of weeks of intensive and obsessive research.

They spent the next few hours considering the exact wording of the letter to Professor Conaghan and in the discussion of the ritual itself before Harry, utterly exhausted, headed off to bed, throwing one last invitation to join him and a saucy wink over his shoulder at the older witch.

Her reply had him choking with laughter as he stumbled back to his room, his ever faithful familiars peering suspiciously at every shadow along the way.


	9. Chapter 9

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing...well except for what I actually own, but I own nothing to do with the Harry Potter books.**_

**Interlude**

Harry lay in bed a few days later, having had the most delicious sleep-in. A lazy grin slid across his face as he remembered his first morning in Ireland, and he yawned and stretched like a cat. Having been already tired from his travels to Ireland, he had been further exhausted by the long and intense conversation he had had with Grammy. He had been woken from his much deserved rest by Seamus and Dean, who had decided that he had slept for too long and were getting bored. Therefore, they determined to wake him up in a rather abrupt manner. What they seemed to have forgotten, was that he had two rather vicious, over-protective familiars who do not appreciate being violently woken up. Harry let out a lazy chuckle as he remembered the sight. Monster in particular had not been impressed and Harry caught him shooting speculative looks at the two young wizards ever since that morning. Looks they had yet to notice. Hedwig on the other hand had seemed satisfied with herself, having drawn significant amounts of blood and seemed to have deemed her wrath had been suitably noticed.

He sighed again as he stretched his slightly sore body, the ritual felt almost like that new-age nonsense Petunia used to mutter about what with the burning twigs and the dancing naked. He supposed the blood catered to his snobbish magical tastes, it made the ritual feel less theatrical and far more authentic and crucially, more likely to succeed.

While all but a few of the ingredients were relatively common, the ritual itself seemed, to him, to be very complex as it required exacting precision of timing, movements and wording for an extended period of time. When he had asked about the complexity, Grammy as she now insisted Dean and Harry call her, scoffed at him and proclaimed it of moderate difficulty. Harry wondered what would happen if he got any of it wrong. The most critical ingredients were various different woods, so he supposed he would sprout leaves or develop bark instead of skin permanently. That was sure to ruin his prospective love-life. Well, hopefully anyway, Seamus had said Neville was over his odd love of herbology. Harry remembered that odd plant Neville had on the train, the mible-something, honestly, having a plant that crooned and spat out goo when you stoked it was a little suspect, it even looked vaguely phallic.

Harry had spent almost every hour over the last few days learning the phonetics of the ritual chant, and the dance that accompanied it. That was after he had gotten Grammy to write down the exact wording of the chant and he had spent long hours making sure he understood every word he was chanting, and had thought about every word and their use carefully. It's not that he didn't trust Grammy, it's just that he didn't trust the benchmark to which the wizarding world measured anything acceptable. Having a literal twig and acorns instead of the favourite parts of his anatomy might be deemed a fair trade-off to the advantages of the ritual and Grammy hadn't mentioned it as she thought it inconsequential, but damn it he was not inconsequential in any respect and Dumbledore was not worth the family jewels.

After the intensive study, at which she caught him and nodded in an approving manner, not annoyed in the least that he didn't trust her, Harry began trying to learn the ritual chant and dance. He would have tried to figure out all the various nuances of the dance and what each precise movement meant but, not having months to spend to understand even the basics of a ritual, he contented himself with researching the ritual to the highest level of detail available. Which was considerable, as through Grammy, he compete access to the Finegas Academy's vast library, which apparently dwarfed Hogwarts library in quite a few different respects.

While he may not have known the Hogwarts library down to the book as Hermione was valiantly attempting to, he knew the various sections quite well having been dragged there for 'research' quite a few times, and the restricted section even better, having used it a few times hiding out from patrolling prefects at night. He did know that there was no 'rituals' section in the library proper, although there was a slight chance it was a small sub-section and the restricted section did contain books on rituals, most noticeably the one that screamed way back in first year when he had opened it, but they all appeared to be dark rituals.

In fact, just travelling to Ireland and hanging out with Seamus and his family was letting Harry catch a glimpse of just how truly ignorant he was of the wizarding world. While yes, he had known there were other subjects beside those taught in Hogwarts, there had always been an unnoticeable implication they were, if not dark magics, then not light magics. Therefore, they were something the boy-who-lived should not touch with a ten foot pole. Repeated accusations of being a dark wizard over the years by both his peers and the public had left their mark.

He highly doubted the reasons for this were anything more than pure snobbery on behalf of English wizards as a whole, not some evil Dumbledore-trying-to-keep-the-population-ignorant-and-powerless scheme that had for but a millisecond drifted through his mind. He had noticed the slightly xenophobic attitudes of his school-mates, his attention to the attitudes of those around him, fine-tuned from the playground where Dudley was king, had never left him. While he had noticed and mentally registered this attitude, his over-whelming desire, from as far back as he could remember, to be the opposite to the Dursleys who were racist and bigoted to the highest degree, had not let him slip into this mind-set as he had with many of the other prejudices of his peers.

Seamus and Dean had sat by him as he practised the dance part of the ritual, occasionally throwing spells at him 'to make sure he could perform the ritual under pressure' and constantly mocking him until he had brought Hedwig out one day to watch. The pair had eyed her sharp claws and decided that there was Gryffindor, and then there was stupid. A Gryffindor always knew when it was best to refrain from engaging in battle if severely outclassed. And when something has talons over an inch long and has shown a predisposition to use them, it was clear the two had judged it one of those situations.

Monster had seemed to droop slightly when the two had slunk off, he seemed to have developed some respect for Hedwig's maiming abilities and had looked very eager and alert during the Hedwig-wizard stare-down.

The ritual had many components and involved huge amounts of concentration on his part, even for the seasoned participant in rituals, it was nothing to scoff at. He had to dance using certain steps and quite complex hand gestures in an overall inward spiral pattern. The timing was crucial as each syllable of the chant corresponded to a movement of his body and to various other inter-woven parts of the ritual, such as the burning of certain woods and the chimes of a bell.

Monster chose this moment to interrupt his sleep-in by jumping on his bladder, his favourite method of waking Harry, as he seemed to love watching the young wizard running to the bathroom cursing his furry face the whole way.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing...well except for what I actually own, but I own nothing to do with the Harry Potter books.**_

_**A/N: My dear readers, I present to you the much delayed chapter nine with apologies for the rather long wait. In penance I have cut down my tea consumption to only a few cups a day (I refuse to admit the actual number), so I feel suitably punished.**_

_**I know I said I'd write longer chapters, but really that would mean an even longer delay before each comes out, so I thought it best to keep them quite short.**_

**Chapter Nine**

This was the day before midsummer and therefore the day before the ritual. Harry felt almost sick with nerves when he thought about it. Dragons had nothing on this, he had nothing to fight here, he just had to use the rush of adrenaline to sharpen and focus his memory and his reflexes to a far lesser extent.

'In fact, where's a rather badly dressed minion attempting to kill you when you need it?' Harry mused. 'No matter what anyone saays, those death eater robes are extremely girly, which in retrospect might explain the extreme irritability of those forced to wear them. One should always consider the uniforms and their level of fruitiness before one joins an evil organisation of doom. Although it's clear, the kill-everyone-who-annoys-me-and-who-I-think-is-stinky aside, who in God's name wants a life without eyebrows, let alone a nose? Absolutely foolish – there's no way Voldemort could wear sunglasses in sunny weather and a squinting dark lord would just look ridiculous.'

Harry realised his thoughts were getting a little off track and looked at his cup of tea suspiciously. Dean was a tricky bastard and had yet to get Harry back for a few rather colourful comments and amusing incidents over the last few days.

While he acknowledged no-one can look anything other than comical as they perform an ancient ritual dance with an old woman smacking you with an admittedly stylish cane (matching her robes of the day) and yelling out her suspicions on the species and intellectual capabilities of both him and his parents, there was absolutely no need for either Dean or Seamus to consistently snicker at him over the dinner table, and the breakfast table, and when during lunch and so on and so forth. Really, that pitfall trap and the various different species of both magical and non-magical dung (on occasion generously supplied by Monster and Hedwig) that found its way into their food and beds and on one glorious occasion simultaneously into both their showers were entirely deserved.

Seamus, on the other hand was less devious and more the 'I'll curse you so badly that your grandchildren will be humiliated and in pain' type. Apparently, there actually were curses that were both embarrassing and painful generations later, the 'anus cruncher' being the most famous. On hearing the name Harry felt it best not to question the mechanics of the curse but childishly snickered in his head a little while wondering if it would be worth having to see the Dursleys again just so he could use it on them.

Monster seemed particularly keen on the idea if the enthusiastic urination on the Dudley voodoo doll was any indication, and proceeded to spend the rest of the evening giving Harry puppy-dog eyes while pushing the, now dry, voodoo doll around with his paw. Hedwig, aside from tightening her claws on her perch so much the wood made an alarming crunching noise, seemed relatively indifferent. Well that was what he had thought until he caught her hooting an impressive and imaginative variety of curses at the Dudley-doll in the few hours before Monster's urine dried.

Again Harry noticed his mental rambling, and emptied the rest of his tea down the sink. Better to be safe than sorry. He left for the garden to read over the chant a few more times. The dance was quite tiring and required a great deal of flexibility, something which had caused an impressed gleam in Grammy's eyes when he had shown he had little problem with the moves. After all, seekers had to be able to twist and turn in every direction to catch the Snitch if necessary, but the dance was long and Grammy had told him to take it easy and rest his body for the day.

The remainder of the day passed fairly quicklyI. In the spirit of true Gryffindor comradery, except for Hermione and Percy and their overly obsessive study habits, Dean and Seamus did their utmost to distract Harry from both his nerves and his studies using a variety of cunning techniques, one of which was to turn Hedwig purple. She didn't appreciate this, and Seamus had spent the next few hours entertaining Dean and Harry as he ran away screaming from the homicidal owl, Harry having confiscated his wand claiming it was for his own protection, but really, his screams of pain when she finally caught him were incredibly amusing.

Dinner was fairly quiet as only the teens ate together, well, Harry did not participate as he was not allowed to eat and all he was allowed to drink was an odd combination of both tea and potion. He called it a tea as neither the ingredients, nor the texture or the taste made him want to vomit. Something slimy or chunky is always repulsive no matter the taste, he had learned through the vast amount of experience he had with potions being shoved down his throat in the hospital wing. He had seen that sadistic gleam in Pomfrey's eyes – she liked it when they resisted the potions and she got to use force, no amount of lecturing could convince him otherwise.

Seamus had spent most of the meal sulking and flinching whenever a bird flew by the window, while Harry stared into space reciting the chant in his head and Dean chuckled quietly, amusing himself by flicking peas at Harry who was too absorbed in his memorisation to notice. Seamus' parents were currently busy helping Grammy casting the necessary last minute spells on her ceremonial robes and at the Finegas Academy to set up the various ingredients needed for the ritual the next day.

Grammy had run over the physical and somewhat variable components depending on the strength of the ritual.

'Oak for protection, strength, success and stability, rowan for control of the senses and their protection from enchantment and enthrallment, and gorse for protection and preparation for conflict, all of which I think you will find quite useful.' She had then seemed to repress a cackle and Harry had noticed her rubbing her hands together when he had looked away, mumbling about 'Bony-nosed, interfering, dried-up wizards who were beginning to get their comeuppance.' Harry had winced slightly at how much of the stereotypical witch from the Muggle point of view she had seemed, but had quickly gotten over it when she whipped out her pipe to produce grass-scented bright orange smoke. He considered investing in such a pipe, perhaps he could also buy a deer-stalker and whip them on whenever Dumbledore expected him to solve another 'intriguing mystery', but dismissed it on the grounds that he would look foolish in a deer-stalker without a monocle as well and that was taking it perhaps a little too far – he had his new and rather funky glasses after all. The pipe idea seemed to stick though and Harry made a mental note to ask Grammy what she smoked.

The next morning, or a few hours after midnight anyway, Harry was dragged out of bed where he had slept fitfully and a yawning Seamus and Dean wished him luck before he port-keyed to the grounds of the Finegas Academy concealed in a large bulky cloak and nothing else. They had claimed that although they were good friends, no-one wanted to see one of their mates performing a sexually explicit dance in the buff, they had seen him naked often enough in the showers, thank you very much.

Apparently, a good deal of the old magics were based around sex to varying degrees, and while this ritual was about purity and did not involve any sexual acts at all, they still did not want to see 'his naked sweaty body writhing' as Grammy had described it with great relish and an incredibly perverted grin directed at him. This caused both Seamus and Dean to turn a delicate green colour, an especially impressive feat for someone with Dean's skin tone.

She had later mused out loud about the amount of money one of the photographs of Harry performing the ritual would fetch her from his creepy fan-girls. Harry had consoled himself with the fact that Mrs Finnegan would chastise her mother and guilt her into destroying any photos she may take. That, and that Ginny Weasley had no money.

Harry had only had time for a hasty greeting and hurried thanks to Professor Conaghan before he was ordered to stand in the circle and strip while Grammy checked everything was still placed exactly as it should be and painted symbols in a mixture that instantly dried on his skin.

Harry pulled off his pyjamas and kept the cloak tightly wrapped around him, shivering with nerves and the chill of the pre-dawn air. Finally nodding in satisfaction she caught Harry's eye and nodded her head to the east, face as serious as he had even seen it.

Harry spent the next few minutes performing some of the stretches he usually did before Quidditch matches in an attempt to both limber up and warm up.

'Harry, take off the cloak and get into position,' Grammy said, holding her wand like a conductor's baton.

A few deep breaths helped calm his nerves, and then as the first rays of sun shot grey and pink streaks through the rich navy sky, 'Begin'.

He began to twist his body into the first move of the dance, the opening line of the chant falling off his lips. As he moved through the dance faster and faster, his senses seemed to sharpen while his mind distanced itself from his actions, and he noticed the previous grassy scent of the cool morning air was replaced with the smoky tang of the burning oak. At one point in the ritual, when his head was facing down his body, he became aware that the runes on his body were glowing brightly, as if on fire before he was distracted by the intrusion of the sweet scent of gorse. He became progressively dizzier and thought he might stumble, before the sharp and smoky scent of what seemed to be rosemary mixed with what was probably the burning rowan cleared his head as if he had taken a cold shower. He realised the ritual was almost complete and felt exhaustion such as he had never before experienced sweep through his body. Doggedly he continued to moved as gracefully as possible and forced his tongue to coherently chant the last few lines before he collapsed awkwardly in the middle of the circle, too exhausted to even close his eyes.

Dimly, he was aware of steps approaching him before he felt a soft cloth covering his body as he was gently lifted, then all was dark.

He woke feeling as though Hermione had felt the need to savagely beat him with some of her 'light reading' all over his body, his head pounding most of all. A goblet was pressed into his hand and, cracking open his eyes, he winced in the light but recognised the goblet to contain a common but potent headache potion. A sniff confirmed it. God knows he had drunk enough of them, what with his unfortunately frequent bouts of unconsciousness, through bludger-related concussions and other, dark lord related matters.

He downed the potion in one gulp and closed his eyes, enjoying the blessed darkness until the potion came into effect. A few minutes passed and he opened his eyes, blinking until his glasses were passed to him.

He realised he was curled up in a large wicker armchair in a rather large and airy room that seemed to be serving as an office. The room was one of the more unusual and obviously wizardly he had been in, not just due to the sprinkling of magical gadgets, but largely due to the fact one of the walls seemed to be solely made up of vines, twisted around to create large arched windows through which Harry could see the early sunshine of the dawn had been replaced with a soft grey drizzle. The room's other three walls were a light grey stone but seemed to mimic structures and features commonly found in nature, and overall the room gave a light, refreshing and open atmosphere despite the dull weather outside. It made you almost feel as if you were sitting in a sheltered forest glade or very open cave, something so different to the strong rigid structure of Hogwarts.

The sound of a throat being cleared drew his attention to the man he had earlier greeted, now sitting across the desk from Harry and gazing at him with the same interest he had viewed the room with.

He gave Harry a moment to collect himself

'Mr. Potter, it truly is a pleasure to meet you, but I must apologise for the haste of our earlier greeting. I am Professor Fionn Conaghan, former headmaster of the Finegas Academy and now the most highly qualified librarian and curator in the world.' He began with gentle humour.

Harry's mind raced as he tried to recall all Malfoy's interactions with those he respected, and then to filter out the arrogance and general ferret-ness.

'The haste was necessary, but the pleasure is all mine,' he replied with a respectful bow of his head. Like Dumbledore when he was angry, power seemed to radiate from the man seated across from him, and he had truly done Harry a great favour. 'I would like to thank you for all you have done, I am truly in you debt.'''Not at all, Lucy here has hinted at some grave injustices visited on you by Albus Dumbledore,' he replied, gesturing at Grammy seated beside Harry, 'and as you may or may not know, there is no love lost between Albus Dumbledore and I.'

''Ah, yes, I do believe there are some rumours....' he replied, delicately trailing off.

'Rumours supplied by that excuse for a human being,' Grammy interjected roughly.

The old man smiled and Harry was relieved not to see a hint of a twinkle. Sitting across from Harry in his unusual office, he looked nothing like Dumbledore. Aside from the thankfully absent twinkle, his robes did not look like he was maliciously planning to induce a fit in innocent passers-by. His expression was benevolent, but there was obvious sharp intelligence in the smoky blue eyes surrounded by a great many laughter lines. Like Dumbledore, he was tall and thin with a beard, but his silver beard was short and well groomed and both his words and gestures careful and cultivated. In all, he had a very different presence to Dumbledore, something which Harry catalogued in the back of his mind.

'Now, I do believe we can count the ritual as a success, otherwise you would be dead, or at the very least, permanently a different colour. The only person I ever knew to survive a slightly botched ritual turned a vibrant shade of orange with slight purple overtones, an unfortunately unattractive colour to be stuck with,' the older man mused.

The next few hours were spent in discussion, rarely touching on delicate matters, like the reason for the ritual, and Harry ended his visit to the former school with a tour given by Professor Conaghan himself.

Only on their way to the Portkey site did Grammy discuss the ritual.'Harry, there is a chance, depending on how deep the connection between your soul and your wand is, that the ritual might have least weakened the spells on your wand. I think you should re-brew the Revelation Potion.'


	11. Chapter 11

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing...well except for what I actually own, but I own nothing to do with the Harry Potter books.**_

_Summary:_

_In the last chapter Harry finally performed a ritual to free himself from the majority of spells attached to him helped by Grammy and the headmaster of a former magical school in Ireland, Professor Conaghan. There is a possibility that the highly illegal and immoral spells attached to his wand have also been effected by the ritual but a test is needed to prove this-all these questions and more shall be answered in the below chapter...or will they?_

**Chapter Ten**

The day after the ritual, the three teens set out for Frathum Wharf, a dock that had a large magical market on Tuesdays, every Tuesday for over 600 years. Harry was quite sure that on the Tuesday coming the market would be in session seeing as it had been business-as-usual even during the famed rainbow gerbil stampede of 1631. This most memorable occasion had been celebrated occasionally for years afterwards by the release of large amounts of drunk rodents. Unfortunately, this practise had to be halted when some drunk lemmings, a species that happen to be prone to violent bouts of angst when drunk, made a suicide pact and the implementation of said pact was recorded by some bemused Muggles.

This lead to vicious rumours about lemmings. This, in turn, resulted in the formation of the first ever rodent variation of alcoholics anonymous by some even drunker wizards.

It was soon declared illegal to give any sort of narcotic to large groups of rodents of any sort, as the drunk wizards who formed EMO, (the ridiculously nonsensical and overly long name of the society against feeding rodents alcohol was commonly abbreviated to EMO) were very, very annoying. Far more annoying than a few drunk and/or suicidal rodents.

The law against feeding rodents alcohol was actually only implemented to stop such a large amount of drunken idiots congregating. Such occurrences were only truly tolerated on feast  
days or in celebration. Amusingly, EMO were so annoying that there was a brief counter-group initiated whose focus was campaigning to have all those in EMO 'put down for the good of the community as a whole'. It had quite a few followers.

On arriving back at Seamus' and taking a nap, Harry (on his third attempt) had correctly re-brewed the revelation potion. Unfortunately it showed that the spells that had been cast on his wand were still active, but to a far lesser degree, while everything else had been nullified. Annoyed, Harry realised the only way to completely get rid of the spells on the wand was either through certain spells or potions that were illegal in almost every country in the world, as even the most basic theory behind casting spells on a wand was highly classified and the topic considered taboo in most circles.

Nevertheless, Harry believed he could buy a charm of some sort aimed at negating the effects of the spells on a soul, something that should, in theory, work on his wand also. A theory that Grammy agreed with and even suggested a shop of a somewhat dubious reputation where he could buy such a charm, for the right price of course. He just had to promise he would not bring Seamus anywhere near the shop, a request she made with not a trace of amusement on her face, an expression Harry had come to learn was very unusual.

'You, my boy, are incredibly cynical and dis-illusioned. Dumbledore,' she had spat the old wizard's name as if it left a foul taste in her mouth, 'has an unfortunate tendency to sacrifice the few for the many. You were one of the few, and, from stories I've heard of your experience in Hogwarts, you, unlike both Dean and Seamus, have sacrificed your childhood innocence long, long ago... For the greater good, of course.' She made this statement with such bitterness that Harry dared not ask, and that was the end of the last long conversation Harry had with Grammy.

Seamus was most enthusiastic about their proposed trip to Frathum Wharf claiming Harry 'desperately needed to experience a magical culture not seeped in ridiculous English magical ideals' as Seamus put it. Of course Seamus called every other non-Irish magical community something similar. Most noticeably, he remembered Seamus commenting at the Quidditch World Cup that the Bulgarians were 'a bunch of pussies who couldn't keep a Quaffle even if it were glued to their arses'.

Harry vaguely remembered some random student commenting that the Bulgarians had caught the Snitch, Harry believed that student had woken up in the hospital wing three weeks later due to 'unusual and unexplainable injuries'. In a magical school where people often had a variety of odd things, ranging from tentacles to extra body parts growing where they shouldn't, he considered causing someone 'unusual injuries' quite impressive. In fact, he thought that that particular student had had to be removed from Hogwarts, as every time he heard any word beginning with the letter 'F' he would immediately curl into the foetal position and rock slowly. No-one ever worked out what Seamus did and how he did it, but the twins had followed Seamus around for weeks begging him to help them eliminate the letter 'S' from the languages everywhere. Snape had given them a month long detention.

The other, and only slightly more important reason in Harry's opinion, that he had to go to Frathum Wharf was that he had to pick up a few essentials for the camping trip he was about to go on with Dean and Seamus. They had decided that Harry had absolutely no understanding of magical culture and they would travel from magical community to magical community in Ireland, and believe me there were a lot. This also helped keep them from being tracked by either of the old and creepy English wizards and their minions, something quite important as the ritual had not been as successful as they had hoped.

There were many different entrances to Frathum Wharf scattered around Ireland, all of which could only be accessed on a Tuesday from sunrise to sunset, apart from the main entrance, accessible any time as many of the vendors also lived in Frathum Wharf.

A quick Portkey journey and the three landed on a secluded pebbled beach. The entrance was on a crumbling pier only a short distance away from their landing site. To enter the gate one must be invited by someone who was already a memberI. In this case, Seamus was inviting both Dean and Harry. Seamus walked to the end of the pier and cut his finger, motioning to the other two to do the same, he let a few drops of his blood fall on the top step.

'I, Seamus Oisin Finnegan, do hereby invite my magical brethren, Dean Andrew Thomas and Harry James Potter, to the most secret entrance of Frathum Wharf. May they trade in honesty, or not be caught if they are damn lying cheating scum.'

The blood was absorbed into the stone, vanishing without a trace as the entrance was revealed. Harry followed Seamus' gaze to see the water on the lower steps being washed away to expose a twisting stone passage that could not have possibly been there before. As they watched the water streaming off the steps, Seamus passed around a healing salve they all dabbed on their fingers. It was never smart to leave your blood easily accessible in the magical world.

They walked down the stone passage lit by globes of flickering green light, giving the impression they were somehow under water. After a few minutes, they reached a large circular wooden door inscribed with runes and characters Harry couldn't even begin to interpret. Without hesitation Seamus pushed the great iron ring on the door, which swung open as if it were weightless.

They were almost hit with a wall of light and sound after the cool dim passageway, and Dean and Harry could only gape in what they were later informed by Seamus looked like Crabbe and Goyle's thinking faces. Harry resolved to tell Hedwig just exactly managed to slip laxatives into her owl pellets.

Frathum Wharf was everything Harry expected it to be, and more. It was crowded with witches and wizards of every age and size, not to mention liberally scattered with magical creatures most of which Harry had never heard of, let alone seen before.

The stalls ranged from a plank of wood, to elaborate tents Harry was sure could fit the whole of Hogwarts within. Perhaps the most unusual aspect of the market was that it was many stories high. The stalls on the higher levels floated beside each other, occasionally jostling their neighbour, which led to what seemed to be huge screaming fits and occasionally small magical explosions. On each level the walk-way was a semi transparent gold road and Harry could see people turning off the roads onto odd disks that seemed to function as lifts to the levels below and above.

Harry shuddered in relief while imagining the chaos his familiars would have brought to the market, and was glad that despite their incredibly cute puppy-dog eyes (how an owl managed them was quite beyond him), his resolve had not crumbled and he had left the two behind to sulk and hopefully not plan a revenge that was too painful.

Many hours were spent wandering the market just to see the odd goods on offerI. In one instance, Dean was chased by a gnome in his floating stall for a good hundred metres after he had spent ten minutes inspecting some paint and then decided not to buy them. Harry and Seamus had nearly wet themselves laughing.

Ditching Dean and Seamus was quite easier than he thought it would be from his experiences with Ron and Hermione.

'I have to get something from a place I promised your grandmother I wouldn't take you and where I don't think either of you should go. It should only take a few minutes.'

A momentary grim expression had slipped across both Dean and Seamus' faces

'Do you know where to go?' At Harry's nod Seamus continued, 'Well then, meet us here in an fifteen minutes,' he hesitated a moment '... be careful, and be sure the price is worth it'.

And with that, the two were off, Dean throwing a concerned glance over his shoulder at Harry.

The stall Harry had to go to was a large and brightly coloured tent full of families displaying what seemed to be toy brooms from the main entrance, and an empty room from the back but for a plain wooden bench.

Harry tapped the nail on the right upper corner with his right thumb and whispered 'freckled sandwiches', the password Grammy had given him before he left. Nothing seemed to change to the naked eye, but Harry swept open the curtain leading to the main apart of the tent to reveal, instead of all the happy families, a silent room with a few hooded and heavily cloaked people of indeterminable species or sex inspecting a number of glass fronted cabinets.

No-one looked up as he entered, as he was as heavily cloaked and concealed as them, thanks to Grammy. The rule seemed to be that if you didn't see anything, you couldn't be asked about it later and so everyone was ignoring each other at a respectable distance.

Harry strode to what seemed to be the cashier's desk and held up a piece of parchment stating what he wanted and how much he was willing to pay. One sacrificed money for such secrecy.

The staff member, as heavily concealed as the customers, read the parchment briefly and then nodded and strode off into the back. He came back a few minutes later with a closed wooden box and Harry handed over the sack of gold. The staff member accepted the gold with a bow and placed it on an old fashioned set of scales. With another small bow he handed over the box to Harry, who tucked it safely into his sleeve. With a nod of thanks, Harry left.

The whole process had taken less than five minutes in total.

Harry noticed a distinct look of relief on both Dean and Seamus' faces as they both gave him a quick glance over to make sure all his limbs were still attached. The rest of the day was spent much more enjoyably, shopping for essentials for their camping trip, such as a set of Dursley voodoo dolls for Monster and Hedwig as Monster's Dudley doll had been shredded mysteriously – Hedwig had looked especially guilty – and trying odd new foods from the different stalls.

The three spent the rest of the evening packing, planning their route, and enjoying a celebratory meal.

They ended up not heading out till late morning as Dean discovered Seamus had filled the camping bags to almost the point of bursting with tea bags, something especially impressive with the huge capacity of the magically expanded bags. This meant Seamus had to be sent to sulk in the corner as the other two unpacked and re-packed the bags, checking Seamus' bag to make sure it contained more than tea bags. A wise decision, as apart from a lone sock and three buttons, his bag had only contained tea.

Just as the three were about to set out, Grammy had taken Harry aside told him that it was likely that all those spells and potions tuned to his blood, cancelled by the ritual had immediately and noticeably failed.

Dumbledore, and likely others, now knew Harry was on the loose somewhere and running hard. The hunt was on.


	12. Chapter 12

**_Disclaimer: I own nothing...well except for what I actually own, but I own nothing to do with the Harry Potter books._**

**_AN: I would like to thank my wonderful beta Jimm and apologise again for the last few updates being so far apart. First I was very busy, then I was very lazy, but I am making an effort to get back into writing and here's a brief interlude to keep people interested._**

**_ LS_**

Summary:

In the last chapter, Harry travelled to Frathum Wharf with Dean and Seamus to pick up some supplies for their camping trip. He discovered that the ritual had not negated the spells on his wand, only decreased their effect, and so he bought something to temporarily block the spells from working. Finall,y he discovered that Dumbledore and other parties were now sure he was free somewhere and had magical aid. 

Interlude Two

The three young wizards spent the next few days travelling around the countryside, sometimes walking and sometimes using the pre-programmed portkeys to travel to the next magical enclave.

As they left the Finnegan's, magically expanded back-packs on their backs, Harry felt the urge to break into song; namely 'we're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz'. He manfully suppressed it though.

Unfortunately he seemed to have unconsciously given into the urge to sing the song a few days later as they ambled slowly along a country lane. There was an odd silence and Harry turned to look at his two travelling companions, to check that yes, apparently he had sung that aloud. The awkward pause was broken by Seamus.

'Harry, you have many talents, super-evil-wizard slaying seems to be one of them. Singing is not.'

'Oh Seamus' Harry replied in a high pitched falsetto 'I guess you would know all about my talents. Oh no! I should not have let Dean know about our kinky affair; you two are in that committed long-term relationship aren't you? Although I do know you pine for your butt-buddy Snape.'

They paused and there was a communal shudder.

'Too far mate, too far.' Seamus replied, his eyes showing how deeply disturbed he was feeling

'You're right. I apologise. I know I shouldn't use the S-word. Especially in relation to any situation where everyone is not fully clothed.'

'Yeah, if anyone is a three bagger it's Snape. I bet he's never gotten laid, and if he ever has I bet they insisted he was fully clothed, except for the relevant bits. No potion or amount of alcohol on earth would ever make anyone, even some one blind want to be in the same country, let alone room as a naked Snape.'

'For the love of God will you stop talking about Snape doing the nasty, because gods know anything involving Snape not being fully clothed is nasty. You two know I can't help but picture it now that you've said it....and it burns!'

The other two briefly turned to sympathise before continuing their conversation.

'So do you think every portrait asked to be moved out of his private quarters?' Harry asked.

'Well most bedrooms and bathrooms and the such-like have only landscapes or some sort of non-sentient being in the paintings or sculptures, if they have them at all. You really wouldn't want some-one or something to be watching you all the time unless you were some sort of exhibitionist. But yeah, the landscapes probably asked to move out in some sort of weird landscape language, that or the magic in the painting forcibly and violently committed suicide in desperation.'

Seamus and occasionally Dean had continued to educate Harry on the subtle nuances to everyday life in the wizarding world, and Harry could not believe the amount he had managed to miss over the years.

'Let us all take a moment to remember the courage of our fallen comrade,' Harry intoned gravely.

After the brief moment of silence from Harry and Seamus, and Dean's not so very muffled sigh of relief at what seemed the end of the topic, Harry restarted the conversation.

'Well I for one have nothing to be ashamed of, unlike some other people I could name, cough Seamus, cough. I bet the portraits would ask to be in my room.'

'I knew it. The great Harry Potter a pecker-checker!'

'Oh please, you have nothing to check, I on the other hand am a god in every aspect of my life. Even Grammy thinks so.'

'You know, someone's grandmother thinking you are hot is kinda creepy' interjected Dean. 'Especially if that is someone is related to Seamus. I mean come on, look at him'

Seamus flexed his arms and winked.

'Sorry ladies, but only the real ladies get a piece of this. You know, the ones with boobies, I love boobies' he finished in a wistful tone.

'Yeah boobies are great,' Dean agreed and Harry nodded in a bemused manner as the other two seemed to drift off with visions of boobies dancing in their heads....possibly...if the lecherous grin on Dean's face was any indicator or Seamus' squeezing imaginary boobs in the air in front of him.

Honestly, sometimes he worried about the people around him

As the two continued to drift in their hormone induced trances Harry mused over their travels around Ireland.

Again and again, Harry was surprised at the vast difference between Irish magical society and what he knew of English magical society. There was a different feel altogether in Ireland, as England had only one completely magical village, whereas Ireland was liberally scattered with small towns and hamlets completely cut off from the muggle world. He noticed that it had become increasingly common for young wizards and witches, muggle born, half-blood and many from the more tolerant wizarding pure blood families to wear muggle clothing as casual wear. It seemed the previous war against Voldermort had brought about the belief that tolerance towards muggles and muggle born wizards was best shown by encouraging the next generation to adopt some aspects of muggle culture.

This was compounded by the fact many of the ancient houses had been eliminated or greatly diminished in the wars against Voldemort and Grindewald to a lesser extent, the Blacks and Potters to name the few most relevant to him.

The three wore travelling robes as they wandered around from wizarding community to wizarding community. The robes were styled in such a way as to allow easy movement, and contained many concealed and enlarged pockets, they even had three different pocket-holsters for wands. Furthermore, the robes were charmed for a whole range of situations, they were water-proof, burn resistant to a certain temperature, and, most usefully, they had a built in notice-me-not charm around muggles. In England Harry knew it would have been fruitless to wear their common travelling robes as the prevalence of muggles would have worn out the notice-me-not charms in a few days, and they would just have ended up looking like some weird cross-dressing muggle teenagers to everyone they passed. Inconspicuous, I think not.

Harry did not really have to worry about being recognised as they entered the wizarding conclaves. Unlike in England, where paranoia was rampant, wearing the hood up on your cloak was fairly common as many enchantments only worked in that situation.

Although the wizards in England did have a reason to be suspicious of cloaked individuals, what with their ever-so-peaceful history with the oh-so friendly masked and cloaked members of society. I mean what's a little torture and murder between friends?


	13. Chapter 13

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing...well except for what I actually own, but I own nothing to do with the Harry Potter books.**_

_Summary of the last chapter:_

_Harry has just begun to backpack around Ireland with Dean and Seamus....it was mainly a filler chapter!_

**Chapter 11**

As Harry sat by the campfire one evening listening to sharp crackles and pops of the fire, and to the breathing of his sleeping friends, he had the odd feeling that he was forever cursed to have a lifetime of odd, wacky adventures, if the last few years of his life were anything to judge by.

They had really only had two strange episodes so far, but his crazy adventure sense was tingling. It had tingled on many occasions; just before he first met Dobby, just before he first met Snape, just before he first met Dumbledore, and so on. In fact, on further thought it was likely to be a tingle to herald meeting an absolute weirdo. He could only hope that they washed, unlike Snape. Just to be sure though, he checked his supply of shampoo to make sure he had extra if needed. He found all was as it should be (he had four extra bottles). Seeing Snape's poor personal hygiene for all those years had led to all the students he knew being obsessive about their personal cleanliness. In fact, some had petitioned to have an extra hour to clean up after potions - you just couldn't help feeling as if some of Snape dirty greasiness had rubbed off on you. Harry gave a slight shudder at the thought and compulsively cast a quick self-cleaning charm.

The first had been decidedly non-magical in nature, but quite surreal and had happened at the very beginning of their travels. Seamus was using a very old pair of travel robes, his great uncles to be precise, as he had grown so much during the school year. Consequently, the charms on the robes, while good quality, had faded over the last ninety years, the muggle repellent charms being the most effected. (Although they hadn't tried to set Seamus on fire so one could not be entirely sure, Dean had pushed him into a river though). One rather atypically sunny afternoon they were wandering cross country through a field when they had happened upon a group of muggles, mainly in their teens and all in rather bizarre costumes shaking what appeared to be swords and other weapons made of foam with a good deal of enthusiasm. Being horrible people the three had decided to stop and see who could come up with the nastiest insult when at the precise moment Seamus accused a rather portly individual of looking like a giant blue turd his muggle repelling charms fell. The giant blue turd took offence and decided to take revenge on Seamus, not with his giant foam war hammer, but with his giant meaty fists.

Soon all attention was on the ludicrous and pathetic attempt at a brawl, what with the muggle alternatively forgetting about Seamus and wandering off when the charm flickered and running back towards Seamus with a roar when the charm failed again, leaving Seamus to run around and dodge the muggle's surprisingly quick though wild lunges.

Harry and Dean had, in the mean time climbed up a small tree to improve their view, but were having great difficulty staying in it they were laughing so hard. Every time Seamus begged for their help they would wheeze back about the magical secrecy acts.

Finally, after around twenty minutes of Seamus sprinting towards the tree with the two wizards when the charm activated and the muggle steadily driving him away when it failed, the muggle had started to turn an alarming reddish colour and gasp hoarsely after every breath, they decided action must be taken.

A wide range diarrhea inducing curse was cast by Dean and Harry shot him an impressed look as they waited for all the muggles to clear the field in search of porta-potties or just a convenient ditch. To Harrys further amusement, Seamus, too, had been caught in the curse which had no counter, one just had to wait it out, so to speak.

The three had then continued their journey slowly, interspersed frequently with toilet breaks and accompanied by non-stop muttered curses by Seamus. Both Dean and Harry had made sure to stay down-wind of Seamus for the next few hours, and then for a few more after that as his muttering had turned increasingly violent, especially as the other two kept snickering.

The best part was in the evening when Seamus had gone to sleep, tired out form his rather nasty and exhausting day, Dean had whipped out a few photos of the muggle and Seamus. Harry had not even seen the camera but made sure to get a copy.

'That muggle was an angry, angry man wasn't he?' Dean mused as they looked over the photos.

'Hmm yeah, being called a giant blue turd isn't so bad. I mean Snape and Malfoy along with most of the Slytherins call me worse every day in Hogwarts,' Harry replied as he tilted his head and squinted his eyes at one of the photos.

'I know, maybe you should start some sort of odd rampage every time someone insults you and they'll stop.'

'Uh Dean, you are aware that a good portion of Great Britain thinks I'm bat-shit crazy as it is right?' Harry replied as he put down the stack of photos and turned to look at Dean.

'Well yeah, but you might as well capitalise on your new psycho reputation. It would be great, think about it. Every time you did something outrageous people would just shake their head sadly and comment on poor crazy Harry Potter. You could get away with murder....well maybe not murder, but anything short of it anyway. Think of all the senseless violence you're missing out on!'

Harry paused for a moment to consider just what exactly he could do and muttered dreamily 'Think of all the women I could accidentally grope,' and then he sighed. 'Dumbledore would have me locked up or potion-ed up so quickly it wouldn't be funny. Have to keep the sterling image of the boy-who-lived after all you know old boy.' he finished, slightly bitterly.

Dean shot him a sympathetic look 'Hey, you can see Seamus clutching his arse and about to shit himself in this one,' he said as he shoved a picture into Harry's hands, and the rest of the evening was spent laughing and planning what to do with the photos. Dean suggest an album, Harry agreed but insisted on sending a few copies to Grammy.

The second odd incident had been when they stumbled upon a revel of what Seamus later told him were clurichaun, kindof like leprechauns but always drunk, and to be honest they were assholes. They were all sitting around beside some sheep cursing and mocking each other, and didn't appreciate their drunken party being interrupted by the three wizards. They had chased the three for hours, none of them having enough time to cast any spell strong enough to repel them. The sheep were surprisingly fast and they had to dodge a hell of a lot of empty bottles until the clurichaun got so drunk they began to fall off the sheep or fight each other. The rest of that evening was spent rubbing bruise-be-gone balm on, occasionally on each other, with Harry reminding Dean to 'keep his hands off the goods, he didn't want Seamus to get jealous did he?'

Harry had discovered he was an even bigger celebrity than he had thought, no one had recognised him yet but he had seen plenty of books about himself in the various bookstores they had visited on their travels. The majority of the books did not laud his victory over the flamboyantly evil snake queen, aka he-who-has-actually-designed-trendy-uniforms-for-his-minions. No, most were speculating about his reasons for surviving the unstoppable killing curse, with various levels of realism. Well, what may seem reasonable to wizards. The three had taken to glancing through vast number of books on Harry and the one who found the most absurd at the end of their journey won a whole bunch of galleons along with a copy of the book containing the questionable theory. Harry felt he had a fair chance of winning, in one book he had read 'You think they're human; but are they?' They had hypothesised that he was actually a puffskein who once he had been hit with the killing curse, had been turned inside out, and apparently everyone knew puffskeins were just poor wizards and witches who had been bitten by snoofters in their unborn state. It did not go into detail on what a snoofter was or how it could bite someone not yet born, but did offer a voucher giving fifty percent off a puffskein in a large chain of pet stores.

Seamus had warned Harry as they had traveled into the more remote areas, that the chances of them having encounters with magical creatures increased greatly. The powerful and nasty kind of magical creatures, which explained some of the odd equipment Grammy had filled each of their packs with before they left. To this end, he gave Dean and Harry a crash course on magical creatures and the do's and don'ts. He picked out a giant ring on which you would usually find keys, but which contained a number of different charms.

In the morning or evening, and especially as it was soon after Bealtine they were likely to see some of the aes sídhe, or fair folk. They had better be damn well polite if they saw any, but iron burned them. He then waved a small charm shaped like a cauldron.

The list went on with odd and nasty sounding creatures such as Bloody Bones, a small rock-like hairy creature that lives near places of water and rewards good children, but punishes bad children, and a few more Harry had heard of, like a kelpie and a will-o'-the-wisp. He rounded off his lecture with warnings about a Fear Dear which wears a red coat and cap and often makes gruesome practical jokes, and a Leansídhe, a female possession spirit.

With his weirdo sense still tingling, Harry started the next day, groaning as Seamus not-so-gently nudged him awake with his foot. It was not long before they met the weirdo his body or magic had been warning him of.

'Ah you! You're after my gold aren't you? Thieves! Thieves the lot of you!' a voice boomed out

The three just blinked in surprise, before Seamus sighed in a resigned manner.

'It's just a leprechaun,' he said, 'although this one was possibly dropped on his head,' he finished under his breath.

The leprechaun squinted up at the wizards.

'You're a rather calm bunch of fellas aren't yee?'

'Yeah, our school is full of loud, ah, eccentric people,' Dean said in a calm manner.

'Really, you're not a sadistic, racist psychopath or a sadistic, filthy grease-bat or a sadistic...' Seamus began.

'Yeah I get it,' the leprechaun interrupted, sounding a little sullen.

Harry had been silently observing the odd little leprechaun.

'And what might you be looking at?'

'Do you, are those really gold underwear in your pot?'

The leprechaun burst into lecherous giggles.

'My gold is twice as valuable, no ten times as valuable as any other gold, so valuable I don't let it out of my sight ever. See I melted my gold down, my real gold, and I gold plate the underwear of the most attractive females around.'

The leprechaun then started to explain, while giggling perversely, which underwear belonged to whom, and the three huddled closer together, pretending to listen while plotting their quick getaway.

'....and then I watched her in the bath....'

'We can't just run, he's much faster than us'

'....and the way she used to bend over when she was....'

'Any portkeys handy?'

'.....now this one belong to Aoife. She had a rack if ever I've seen one...'

'Yes, but I have to get it out of my bag'

'....I believe it's called a thong....'

'Hurry the fuck up. The little bastard's going to turn me gay with the way he's going on'

'....oh so smooth, and her creamy thighs....'

'I'm trying! Believe me I'm doing my best'

'....and I just wanted to lick her toes....'

'Shut up and get the bloody portkey'

'....of course none of these were washed before I....'

'Got it. Hands on. Portus.'

It seemed his travels around Ireland were ordinary, peaceful days interspersed occasionally with extreme moments. Basically like his time at Hogwarts, except for the fact that the nice calm days were few and far between, just squished moments between one crazy adventure and the build-up to the next.

It was headless, with its head under one arm, a hideous thing with huge eyes that constantly darted about, a grotesque mouth literally grinning from ear to ear, and skin he colour of mouldy cheese. It was riding on a headless black horse and wielded a whip made of what looked like a human spine.

It saw them and grimaced as they tried to get the hell away from it. Letting out a hellish shriek it cracked its whip at Harry's eyes. Monster, who had been surprisingly quiet on their journeys, decided now was the time to reclaim Harry's honour and lunged at the dullahan in a blur of brown, badly jarring the creature.

Harry whipped out his wand and summoned Monster as it turned with a shriek of rage and threw a basin of blood on Harry. Fast as lightening, Seamus whipped out a galleon and threw it at the dullahan causing it to cringe and with a last look at Harry, wheel its horse around and flee.

'Remember what I said about not pissing off the aes sidhe?' Seamus asked in a shaky voice.

'Yes?' Harry replied grimacing in disgust

'That was one of them. One of the really nasty ones.'

'Oh. Crap.'

'Yes. Also, remember the way you are supposed to see a grim before you die?'

'Oh?' Harry asked with a sinking feeling.

'Well the whole "getting blood thrown on you by a dullahan" is kinda like that.'

'I think we should perhaps take the portkey to Seamus' house now,' Dean said softly.

'That. Yes. Let's do that,' Harry replied, feeling like he should be really, really pissed at Monster, but sighed as he looked at his cute whiskery face.

Once they arrived at the Finnigans', he picked up Monster so they could see each other eye to eye. 'New rule. No attacking super powerful potentially evil creatures. Are we clear?'

Monster whined softly but Harry's face took a very stern expression, and the krup lowered his head in what Harry hoped was agreement. Hedwig just hooted in a manner that suggested she could have taken the dullahan, but felt it was beneath her.

Harry looked at his two overly protective and aggressive familiars and sighed.

'At least ask me first.'

The next morning the three were a bit miserable that Harry was leaving, but Harry knew with Dumbledore actively tracking him, he couldn't spend too long in the same country.

On the plus side, Harry pointed out, their encounter with the dullahan the night before rounded out his time in Ireland nicely.

'Every bizarre adventure I have has some sort of nasty attempted murder involved,' Harry said with a twisted grin.

'Well you know, you are very annoying, and a bad singer,' Seamus replied awkwardly.

The three lapsed into silence again.

'Thanks guys, I really mean it. I don't ever remembering having so much fun in my life before.'

'Yes, your life is sad and empty without us,' Dean shot back.

Harry checked his watch. 'This is it. You had better write or Hedwig will be pissed.'

The two winced at the menacing look Hedwig shot them and nodded.

'We'll see you around mate, and maybe come visit you later on in the summer?'

'Sure Seamus, I'll use our ultra-secret code and let you know where I am or where I'm headed if you let me know you want to stopover. If not I'll see you back in Hogwarts.'

With one last grin, he turned away and was gone.

'I kind of pity everyone on the continent,' Dean said after a few seconds.

'Poor bastards,' Seamus replied with a grin.

'You want to get some tea?'

'Nah, I'll stick to rum, but you can go right ahead."


	14. Chapter 14

Sequel:

Greetings all my fuzzy buddies- apologies for the very long wait (cough 2 years) between the end of the last book and the beginning of this, but my computer wiped everything including the outline and 6 chapters I had written for book 2- _Where Angels Dare_. I was then too disheartened and busy (and lazy) to rewrite Where Angels Dare, but finally had a hole in the 'ol calendar, so I sat down and wrote chapter 1. It hasn't been beta'd yet, but hope you like it!

Thanks for everyone's patience.


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